The World Itself
by whilewewereyetsinners
Summary: On the night of her high school graduation, Bella realizes how unfair their relationship has been to Jacob. What will she do, and will Edward ever return to her? Canon-friendly AU.
1. Give Me My Romeo

.

_Give me my Romeo, and, when he shall die,  
>Take him and cut him out in little stars,<br>And he will make the face of heaven so fine  
>That all the world will be in love with night,<br>And pay no worship to the garish sun.  
>-Juliet<em>

_..._

Bella

Monday, 12 June 2006

...

Thank God, this day was finally over.

I turned to say goodbye to Jacob, trying not to be obvious about how much I wanted to jump out of the Rabbit and run inside.

Today had been difficult. No, that was too mild. Today had _sucked_. It had been vile and awful. For all that commencement literally meant a beginning, it actually was an ending. An ending to high school in Forks. An ending to high school forever. I hadn't realized that any part of me still hoped for anything else. All day, I'd had to struggle to breathe, to appear normal. As normal as I ever got anymore, at least.

"Before you go in, I have something for you." I noticed distractedly that his hand trembled a little as he held the colorful woven pouch out to me.

"It's pretty, Jake, thank you."

He rolled his eyes. "The present's inside, Bells."

I finally figured out how to open it just as I could see Jake reaching to take it back from me. Probably to open it himself and hand it back to me. Like I was a baby. I remembered _him_ unwrapping my presents for me after we got home from my birthday party and felt a flash of anger at both of them. I could open my damn presents for myself. I was an adult, for crying out loud.

I couldn't see anything in there, so I felt around inside with my finger. It was dark out; Jacob, Billy, Charlie, and I had gone to the Lodge for dinner after the ceremony. It seemed like half the town was there, leaning over and around the backs of booths and chairs, talking to each other, full of congratulations and gossip. I had wanted to leave before we even arrived, so it had seemed to drag on interminably. Charlie had taken Billy home afterwards, the two of them thinking that Jake and I would be going to one of the graduation parties, either in town or La Push, but I had convinced him to take me home. I just wanted to be alone, to think about the ramifications of today. To not think about it. To just be alone.

Soon, I reminded myself. I would be alone soon. I pulled out my gift and peered at it in the half-light of the streetlamp. It was a bracelet, woven with colorful strings and beads. A friendship bracelet, I thought. It was pretty. "Thank you, Jake, I love it. Will you tie it on me?" I held my arm out with the bracelet threaded between my fingers.

He started to take it, then stopped. "I can't yet; I need to tell you what it is first." He paused, his eyes a little wary, then muttered, "I'm not sure—I thought this was the right thing—but…"

"I don't understand—isn't it a friendship bracelet?" Of course it was a friendship bracelet.

"Uh, no." He sounded uncomfortable.

Not a friendship bracelet. _Not_ a… then what was it? I felt my breath start to speed up. It was obviously _something_. My hand dropped down between us, still holding it.

Jacob took a deep breath. "Ok, hear me out, Bella. The Quileutes, we do things a little differently from you palefaces." He smiled at me slightly. "We don't do engagement rings or things like that. Traditionally, I mean. We didn't use to. It used to be that when a warrior and a maiden agreed to marry he would give her a bracelet he had woven himself to signify that they were promised to each other. Now, of course, we do give engagement rings, but some of us still give bracelets as sort of a promise ring." He took another deep breath, looking steadily at me. "And that's what I'm trying to do here. I love you. Obviously, we can't get married right now. But I want to promise you, Isabella Swan, that I do want to marry you. One day, when we're done with school and everything, you are the only one I want to be my wife. And if you let me tie on the bracelet, you are agreeing to that." He smiled at me more fully, but his eyes were still wary.

I couldn't open my mouth to speak; I was too busy trying not to hyperventilate. What had I done? I had been so content just to drift with him, to cling to him as I drifted, even though I knew he felt more for me than I did for him. I'd let him hold my hand and kiss me, wanting to make him happy, never thinking about our relationship in the long term. Never thinking about _anything_ in the long term.

He stiffened when I didn't respond, but reached out to take my hand, the bracelet pressed between our palms. "Bella?" His hand was so warm, I wanted to never let it go, to never let him go, but I knew I had to.

"Jake, I…I'm so sorry. I've been so selfish. I can't do this to you."

He whispered, "Then don't do it, Bella. Just say yes."

"I don't mean…Jake, listen. I haven't been fair to you. I've been depending on you to help me survive. You've been…you've been _everything_. My personal sun, keeping me warm. You've kept me from feeling the hole, from breaking apart. I don't know how I would have survived without you. But I need to. I need to be able to survive without you. I need to be able to survive without…without _him_." I was crying now. "I don't know how to do it. But I need to figure it out. I've been hiding from it, making you insulate me from it, and I have to stop." I sniffled. "It's not right for me to do this to you. Besides, you deserve better than me."

"What?" He sounded genuinely surprised, the idiot. I truly didn't deserve him, as a friend or…or anything else. "I don't want anyone better than you!"

"Well, you should! You should want someone who doesn't make you flinch because you know she's thinking of someone else—" he flinched and I said, "See? You should have someone who loves you more than any other guy, more than anything, whose world revolves around you, who makes a promise bracelet and puts it on _you_—"

"Bells, guys don't wear these bracelets," he interrupted drily.

"You know what I mean." I pushed his shoulder and he obligingly swayed a little. "Jake, you're my best friend and I love you. I want you to be happy. How can you be happy with me the way I am now? _I'm_ not happy with the way I am. I'm… I'm broken. I don't want to break you too." I slumped back against the seat and closed my eyes. I couldn't do that to him. I had just wanted him to be happy—how had I not seen that was what I could do to him? What I _would_ do to him, if I didn't stop this?

I felt his hot fingers on my face, wiping my tears away. "I was happy—I _am_ happy with you. And you won't always be broken."

"What if I am? What if I never get over… over Edward?" I made myself say his name, and sucked in my breath at the pain that ripped through me. What chance did I have of getting over him if I couldn't even say his name? I had to start saying it, no matter how it hurt. "What then?"

"You will," he said with certainty. "You just need time. I shouldn't have pushed this. I'm sorry—I'll wait as long as you need."

I forced myself to turn my head and look him in the eye. "Jacob Black, do not wait for me. Do you hear me? I don't want you to waste your time waiting for me."

I watched horror spread across his face as he finally realized what I was saying. "You…you're breaking up with me, aren't you? _Damn_ that bloodsucker! That stupid—" He was starting to shake.

"Jacob, stop! You need to calm down." I waited until I felt the tremors stop, and said slowly, emphasizing every word, "This is not about him." He laughed disbelievingly. "It isn't—this is about me. About me being able to cope with my life, to survive on my own, without taking advantage of you and using you as a crutch."

"I haven't minded it," he said in a small voice.

"I know," I replied quietly. "I'm sorry. I should have minded it for you. I wasn't a good friend to you." He got blurry and I realized I was crying again. "I just, I could breathe when I was with you, you know? And I wanted to make you happy, and I never thought about the long term, I mean, what if I'd said yes to you tonight, Jake? What if I married you one day, still loving Edward? How could I do that to you? I'm so stupid—I should have realized that's where we were headed—I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Jake."

He sighed shakily. "Come here, Bells." He dragged me across the gearshift onto his lap and muttered, "This would be a lot easier in your truck. Damn bucket seats."

I let out a watery laugh and tried to stop crying. "I really…I'm sorry, Jake. I never wanted to hurt you."

"Shh, honey, I know. You tried to tell me how you felt in the beginning." He kissed the top of my head. "And I told you I was prepared to be annoyingly persistent. I guess I just figured persistence would be enough. I never thought I was stopping you from healing."

"I don't know if you did. I don't know if I can. Ever heal from this, I mean." I honestly couldn't imagine a time when the loss of Edward, and Alice, and the rest of the Cullens, and the life I'd longed for wouldn't be a gaping hole inside me. How could anyone recover from the loss of everything they'd wanted so badly? "But I do need to learn how to deal with it on my own. How to be… to be… human again, I guess. An adult, and mature, and all that." I sniffled. "It sucks."

He laughed a little and stroked my hair. "Yeah, it does."

We sat for a long time, his chin on my head and my cheek pressed against his chest. He seemed calm, but I felt him swallow hard a few times. He was so warm—how would I survive, being cold again?

I had to. For him.

Eventually I noticed that the window handle and the steering wheel were jabbing my ribcage from different directions. I tried to readjust, to no avail. He put his hands on my shoulders to stop my squirming. "You okay, Bells?"

"Yeah, sorry. Just the steering wheel stabbing me."

He shifted me back to my seat. "Sorry. The seat won't go back any further."

"It's okay. I don't know how you fit in this thing anyway. I'm surprised your knees aren't up to your chin when you drive."

"Yeah, yeah. You've said that before." He rolled his eyes.

I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around my legs. I realized I was still holding the bracelet, and held it out to him. He pushed my hand back.

"You keep it. What would I do with it? Besides, maybe you'll want to put it on one day," he said flippantly.

"Jake…" I really wished he wouldn't be hopeful.

"Bells, seriously. I don't want it." His voice broke at the end, and he cleared his throat.

"Okay," I said quietly. I wrapped it around my forefinger. "So…"

"So…"

"Yeah. So, I'm kind of afraid to get out of the car?"

"How come? You have more vampires wanting to kill you?" He raised an eyebrow at me and I swatted his arm.

"No! At least, I doubt it. I never met any others besides James' coven and the… the Cullens."

"Yeah, at least the redhead's dead. That's one thing I don't have to worry about." He was silent for a minute. "I should get going. If you hurry, you can be in bed before Charlie gets home—I know you probably don't want to talk to him tonight."

I sucked in my breath and put my feet on the floor. "Sure. Um, sorry, I'll just—" I felt him take my hand, and sucked in another shaky breath.

"Bells, calm down, it's okay."

I blurted out, "Will I ever see you again?" I felt tears well up and spill over again. Really, this was ridiculous. I was going to have to drink a whole gallon of water to rehydrate myself.

"What kind of question is that?" He frowned at me. "Of course you will. Just…just maybe not for a while, okay? It'll give us a both a chance to deal with things."

"Okay." I swiped at my face. "Sorry."

He pulled me into an awkward hug. "You get your head on straight, okay? Learn how to be mature and all that. I'll be here waiting for you when you're done."

"Jake, no." I tried to pull away and he wouldn't let me. "Please don't wait for me."

"Sure, sure." He patted my back and I shoved him away.

"Seriously, Jacob! Don't waste your life waiting for something that might never happen. I mean it."

He said calmly, "I'll try not to wait if that'll make you happy, but really, Bells. You don't get it, do you? The way you feel like there's no one for you but the.. but Edward? That's how I feel about you."

I felt like he'd kicked me in the stomach. "Oh, Jake… I—"

"Don't apologize to me again," he interrupted. "I knew what I was getting into. Besides, I've got loads of time. I'm not getting any older, remember?" He grinned at me, but even in the dark I could tell it didn't reach his eyes.

"Yeah, don't remind me," I muttered. I opened my door, squinting as the interior light came on. "Or maybe you'll imprint," I said, to irk him in return. I didn't know why, but he'd always been hostile about the possibility.

Although… Now that I knew how strongly he felt, I realized why he didn't like the idea. Obviously, he hadn't imprinted on _me_. Crap. Now I felt bad for all the times I'd teased him about it.

"I guess that would make your life easier," he replied sourly.

"It would make you happy, so yes, it would." I smiled fleetingly at him and got out of the car, surprised when he got out too. He came over and wrapped me in a hug, stiffening for a minute as he smelled the air. I was used to his wolfy ways so when he didn't comment (or throw me back in the car and phase) I ignored it. I just reveled in the awesomeness that was a hug from Jacob. He was so warm, and so huge. Even though I was up on the curb he still towered over me.

"I couldn't hug you right in the car," he explained.

"It _is_ a tiny little car," I murmured.

He kissed the top of my head. "Stop picking on my car. Listen, Bells, you take care of yourself, okay? If you decide you want to do something stupid, call me first and we'll do it together. All right?"

I remembered Edward's eyes blazing into mine as he ordered me not to do anything reckless or stupid, and wondered what it was about me that made guys tell me to be safe when they left me. Not that Jacob was leaving me, really, since I basically had told him to go. And I knew he loved me—_Jacob_ telling me to be safe made sense.

My brain stuttered to a stop for a second. Wait. Why had Edward been so emphatic about it? It didn't make sense. Why did he care so much if I was safe or not? He was thinking of Charlie? He didn't want me, he suddenly had this huge concern about my father? Really?

_It didn't make sense_.

I filed that thought away for later and made myself refocus. "I promise, Jake. I won't do anything stupid alone." I hugged him tighter. "I'll miss you."

He stroked my hair. "I'll miss you, too." He pulled away and kissed the palms of my hands, curling my fingers over them, then, slow and gentle, my lips. He stared at me for a moment, his hands in my hair, like he was memorizing my face. "I love you, Bella."

Tears stung my eyes. "Love you too, Jacob."

His face twisted as he turned away, and right before he got into his car he said, "Love you more."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: My husband and I took the 'love you more' game to heights of ridiculousness while he was deployed, but until I read Eclipse I never thought about how horrible it would be to say it and have it be true. :( Title is taken from Shakespeare's Henry VI: "For where thou art, there is the world itself, with every several pleasure in the world, and where thou art not, desolation." Kind of an icky quote in the context of the play, but out of it I think it fits E&B well.  
><strong>


	2. How Fares My Juliet?

.

_How fares my Juliet? that I ask again;  
>For nothing can be ill, if she be well.<br>-Romeo_

…

Edward

Monday, 12 June 2006

...

Was Bella always going to be in a vehicle with that boy when I came?

She was in a beat-up old Volkswagen with him this time, instead of her truck. My mind involuntarily flashed back to the last time I had been here and I shuddered, pushing the thought away. Last time, I'd had hope. I hadn't acknowledged it until after I'd left here, impotently trying to run so fast that everything would blur, but underneath my excuse of checking on her had been hope that I'd been wrong. That she wouldn't forget me. That she wouldn't have moved on.

Hope that she would still want me, that she would forgive me and take me back.

I knew it was wrong. I should be happy she'd moved on. I wanted more for her than me. But even now, beyond all sense and reason, I still had hope.

I didn't want to have hope. It hurt too much.

I settled myself more securely in the branches of the tree, rubbing at the pain in my chest. The last time I was home, about a month ago, Carlisle had joked that I looked like a man with angina and if he didn't know better he'd think he needed to check my heart. I had tried to laugh, like I knew he wanted me to, but it sounded more like sobbing.

Then, angry with myself for my inability to even _pretend_ to be normal and missing Bella so much that I wanted to start screaming and never stop, I'd thrown a chair through a window.

Carlisle apologized, Esme cried, Emmett wished I'd just "go back to Bella and be happy already," Rosalie was disgusted, Alice was angry at my "imbecilic stubbornness," and Jasper needed to flee the house, not able to handle the barrage of disparate emotions. I'd left that night, after replacing the window, and hadn't been back since.

Not that I'd been living with my family since we left Forks anyway. All I did was make everyone unhappy, and being around them reminded me of Bella. To be fair, everything reminded me of Bella. I'd gone to England, hoping the change of scene would help, but there were reminders everywhere of the classic authors and books she loved, and I saw so many things I wanted to share with her. So I came back to the States, trying to escape the constant mental refrain of _Oh, wouldn't Bella love that_ and _I wish I could show Bella this_. I visited my family periodically, staying until I felt that the misery I was causing outweighed whatever happiness my presence brought. It never took very long, a few days perhaps. When I ran across Victoria's scent it had been a blessed relief to finally have a purpose. Tracking had kept me busy for a little while, until I realized I had lost her trail, and then there had been no purpose in anything anymore.

I shook off the memories of my hellish stay in a Rio attic, reminding myself that I still had a purpose, and it was Bella. Keeping an eye on her and making sure she was safe. And no matter how little I wanted to, I needed to listen to what was going on in the car, just long enough to hear that she was safe and happy. Then I could leave, flee from the torture of seeing her happiness without me, and the awful tug of war between the longing to be close to her and the need to stay away from her could begin anew.

After what I experienced the last time, I didn't want to look through the boy's mind. I forced myself to listen, and frowned. Bella sounded upset. Was she crying? What did that boy do to her?

I focused on his thoughts. His head was a morass of pain: grief, regret, inadequacy, anger… but not at Bella… anger at me? He was imagining me torn apart, which was amusing, or would be if there wasn't something wrong about the scene he was picturing. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something wasn't right.

I could see them moving around in the car and gave into the temptation to look through his eyes. He was helping her back into her own seat, the implications of which I refused to think about. She turned her head to look at him and I sucked in my breath. Even red-faced and tearstained, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Not that I had forgotten what she looked like—how could I?—but seeing her again, even through someone else's weaker eyes, was glorious.

I stared at her through him, drinking her in, not paying any attention to what they were saying until he said the word "vampires".

_That's_ what was wrong with his mental picture of killing me.

There was no blood.

He knew what I was.

I felt a stab of fear mixed with hurt. Why would Bella tell him about me? Didn't she know it wasn't safe to tell people? The Volturi—

My thoughts cut off in shock when images of Victoria flickered through his mind. "At least the redhead's dead," he said. I could see Victoria running, her wild hair streaming behind her, a huge wolf slamming into her side, knocking her off her feet, other wolves on her, pulling her apart, a large snout closing over her face and cutting into her neck. Half-naked young men looking around for the pieces, standing relaxed around the pyre, laughing and joking as she burned.

Victoria had been here.

I had been looking for her down south when she had been _here_.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the wolf gene hadn't died out like we'd thought. There were shape shifters and a vampire here and I had left Bella defenseless.

God forgive me—what had I done?

I clutched a tree branch, unintentionally turning it to pulp in my horror. That boy… he was one of them. He was a wolf. He had been the one to rip Victoria's head off.

My Bella was in that tiny rattletrap with a young, volatile, shape-shifting wolf.

I fought back my panic—it went against every instinct I had, but I couldn't go get her. I couldn't risk fighting him so close to her.

They were getting out of the car now, and I could only be relieved that she was out of that confined space with him. He had left his door open—hopefully he would leave, and Bella would be safe.

He was enormous. I hadn't seen him since the prom and he was normal-sized then, but now he looked to be several inches taller than Emmett. I cringed as he hugged her, hoping he wouldn't hold her too tightly and hurt her. The wind blew past me towards him and I heard the alarm in his mind as he smelled me.

_Vampire— have to get her out of here!_

Damn it. I really didn't want to have to deal with him, but I didn't want him to take her away either, especially since he'd likely take her to La Push. I certainly didn't want her in the middle of the wolves' territory! I jumped from the tree and landed silently at the edge of Bella's yard.

His eyes widened when he saw me, and then his mind exploded with profanity. Really, how vulgar he was.

_Don't you go anywhere near her, _he thought fiercely.

I raised my eyebrows and smirked. He must be joking. Who did he think he was, trying to tell me what to do?

_I mean it, leech. I know you can hear me. You stay away from her. Wait here. I want to talk to you after she goes in. _

Fine, whatever. I rolled my eyes and nodded, stepping back into the trees where Bella wouldn't be able to see me.

I ground my teeth as he kissed her and told her he loved her, but I couldn't help noticing that, aside from his anger at me, his mind was full of grief. I wished I had arrived earlier and paid better attention so I knew what was going on. He got into his car and drove away after Bella went into the house. _I'm going to park around the corner and be right back. Don't make me come find you. _There was a flash in his head of him tearing me apart and I laughed out loud. His dreams of killing me were ludicrous.

I could hear his mind getting closer; he was debating whether he should phase or not. He knew that he'd be safer in his wolf form, but he wanted to talk to me face to face and he didn't want me to think he was afraid of me. In the end bravado won out, and he approached me on two feet.

"Leech," he said by way of greeting.

I raised an eyebrow, my face impassive. "Dog."

He stood in silence for a moment, his mind in turmoil, then burst out, "Does Bella know you're here?"

"No," I replied, surprised.

He continued glaring at me. "Are you lying?"

I rolled my eyes. "No, I'm not lying. I arrived while you were in the car."

An image of Bella crying flashed through his mind and we both flinched.

"Well, then, why are you here?" he demanded.

"I came to check on Bella."

He stared at me with his mouth open. "You came to—are you _serious_?"

"Of course I'm serious. I wanted to make sure she was okay." Safe, and happy.

"She's fine," he snapped. "So go ahead and leave."

"She didn't seem fine when she was talking to you," I said accusingly. "What did you do to make her so upset?"

There was a moment of complete silence, then his mind and his mouth exploded. "What did I do? What did _I_ do? I have spent the past five months trying to make her happy, that's what I've done! Not that it worked because for some reason she can't get over your stupid ass, but at least I tried! She is the most wonderful…and you practically destroyed her! Damn you! How could you do that to her?!"

His whole body was shaking and I automatically backed away to give him space, mentally reeling at his outburst. I… she… really?

He seemed to realize how close he was to phasing, because he stopped talking and took some deep breaths. After a minute he continued in a cold voice, "No one here needs you. Bella will be fine. Go away, and don't come back."

I heard Bella get in bed and start crying. I rubbed my chest. "I can't leave until I'm sure she's all right."

"Leech, do you want to know why she was crying in the car? Because of _you_. Because she wants to get over you." A memory of Bella flashed into his mind. _I need to be able to survive without… without him. I don't know how to do it. But I need to figure it out._ "So go away and let her do it."

"No. I need to talk to her. If she doesn't want me to go, I'm staying." Could she really want me to stay? If she did, I knew I would never be able to leave her again.

"Oh, sure," he said sarcastically. "How long are you going to stay this time? A few more months, before you get bored and run off again? I won't have to pick up the pieces the next time because there'll be nothing of her left! Just leave her the hell alone and let her live her life in peace."

"I was never bored!" I hissed. "And that's what I was trying to do; let her live a normal human life, and be safe and happy. That's all I've ever wanted for her!"

"Well, you're just a big, fat failure then, aren't you, because we spent months protecting her from vampires who wanted to kill her because of _you_. So, yeah, she wasn't safe _or_ happy."

Wait, vampires, plural? An image flashed through his head and I fisted my hands in my hair. "_Laurent_? Laurent was here, too?" I could see his memory of Laurent casually stalking Bella, getting closer and closer to her; hear Jake's desperate mental argument with the other wolves, saying that they had to attack, that it wouldn't break the treaty; Bella cringing back, her face a twisted mask of horror…

She would have known it was useless to run. She would have known there was no way to save herself. My poor Bella, she must have been so terrified. I pushed at the pain in my chest with both hands as I watched Laurent breathe in her scent and his hands move towards her. "Oh God, _stop_."

The memory abruptly cut off. Surprise flickered across his face as his eyes moved from my face to my hands, but when he spoke his voice was still hard. "Just leave her alone, bloodsucker."

I rubbed my chest and didn't say anything for a long time. Finally, I admitted tiredly, "I can't."

Both our heads turned as Bella began to talk in her sleep. "Jake... Jake, sorry."

He scrubbed his hands over his face, looking older and more weary than anyone his age should. "Give her time then."

"Edward," she said, and whimpered.

I fought the urge to run across her yard and up the side of her house, to go through her window and gather her in my arms and never let her go. The surge of pain in my chest made it hard to breathe, and my voice came out harsher than I intended. "Time for what?"

_To get over you_, he thought angrily. "To deal with what you did to her." He must have been able to tell I was about to argue because he snapped, "She's never dealt with it and she wants to." _I do need to learn how to deal with it_, Bella's voice agreed in his head.

"I'm not waiting forever, if that's your hope," I said coldly.

"No. No, don't fight," Bella said in her sleep, moving restlessly.

I could hear his mind making calculations. "Wait a month."

I snorted. "No."

"Three weeks."

"No."

"Well, how long then?" he snarled.

"No. Stop it," Bella grumbled. I couldn't help but smile a little. So fierce, even in her sleep. If she really wanted time to work through things in her mind, I would give her that. It would be hard to wait, knowing that she still had some measure of affection for me, but I would do anything for her.

"I'll wait a week," I announced.

"That's not long enough."

"Too bad," I said implacably.

He ground his teeth, but accepted it. Not that he had a choice. I was just glad we weren't going to waste time arguing about it.

Bella said clearly, "On the ceiling? That's strange," and for the thousandth time I wondered what on earth she was dreaming about. How I wished I could see her dreams!

We stood silently, watching Bella's house. Grief was slowly winning the war against anger in the boy's mind. Whatever was said in the car had clearly made him very unhappy, and I couldn't help but feel a pang of pity for him.

He ruined it by saying nastily, "Well, if you're going to wait a week you can leave now."

"I said I wouldn't approach her, not that I was leaving. By all means, you feel free to leave."

He mentally cursed at me. "Yeah, right. If I leave, what's to stop you from breaking your word?"

I was hard-pressed not to smirk at his notion that _he_ could stop me. "I won't break my word. Besides, it's not like you can follow me around all week. You do remember that I don't sleep?"

"Whatever, leech. I'm staying." He was quiet for a minute. "You'll really give her a week?"

"A week," I confirmed. Seven days. One hundred sixty-eight hours. Ten thousand eighty minutes. Six hundred four thousand, eight hundred seconds. Why had I agreed to this again?

"No, don't," Bella murmured plaintively. "Edward. Come back."

The boy flinched at her words, but I rubbed my chest gratefully as they soothed the pain a little. I could give her a week. It would be difficult to be so close and yet stay away from her, but the knowledge that I would see her at the end of it would make it the very best week of the past nine interminable months.

We stood vigil for the rest of the night, enemy sentries strangely finding themselves with a common target to protect. Bella spoke in her sleep long after her father's return home, apologizing to the wolf and telling me to come back, but he and I said not another word.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Hope this chapter answers some of your questions about what Edward's been up to and whether Victoria really is dead. Next chapter will be back to Bella's POV, and will be up on Monday.**


	3. Let Me Weep

.

_Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss._

_-Juliet_

…

Bella

Monday night, 12 June - Wednesday morning, 14 June 2006

...

I watched Jacob leave, waiting until I couldn't see his tail lights anymore before I went into the house. I knew I should hurry, since I _really_ didn't want to talk to Charlie about my evening, but I felt like I was trying to move underwater. Everything took longer than it should. I let out a sigh of relief when I was safely in bed, then burst into tears when I realized I was cold.

I knew I'd done the right thing. I loved Edward too much and Jacob not enough. He deserved better than to be second best. But I missed him so horribly already and feeling cold just made me think about it more. I ended up crying myself to sleep.

My dreams that night were bizarre. I was asleep in bed. Jacob was sitting on the floor next to me, wearing only cut-off sweatpants, and Edward was in my rocking chair. Jacob played with my hair and Edward rocked slowly while they pleasantly debated which one was better for me, listing the pros and cons, even, preposterously, listing pros for each other. Then they unexpectedly jumped up; Jacob phased and Edward had on his vampire face, and they wrestled around on the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling, and back to the floor. Then they jumped out of my window and wrestled their way into the forest, snarls and growls drifting behind them.

And my dream-self slept through all of it.

What was I supposed to make of _that_? I hated the nothingness dream, but at least I understood it. This was completely nonsensical.

I woke up tired and with a headache, and not at all happy that I had to work today. I headed downstairs to grab some breakfast and literally ran into Charlie in the kitchen. He grabbed my arm to keep me upright.

"Whoa, there, kid! You okay?" He took a good look at me. "You look beat. Did you go back out after I got home?"

"No, just didn't sleep well. And I have a headache." I tried to look cheerful and turned to pour myself some cereal.

He said in a too-casual voice, "So, I was surprised to see that you were already asleep when I got home. I figured you'd still be out."

Crap. I really didn't want to talk about this now. Or ever, really, but I suppose that wasn't realistic. I put a bite of cereal in my mouth, chewing slowly, and went to sit at the table. Charlie sat down across from me.

Great. I should have stayed standing up.

"Bella? Is everything okay with Jake?" He sounded very parental.

I sighed and rubbed my hand over my eyes. "Um, well, not really. I mean, we're not fighting or anything, we're just not… together."

He said awkwardly, "Uh, whose idea was that? Not that I need the details!" he backpedalled. "But are you okay?"

"I…" Was I okay? "I think I will be."

He stared at me for a minute and I forced myself to meet his eyes. "Okay. I need to head to the station. You'll be all right?"

"Yeah, Dad, I'm fine. I have to work today, too."

He threw a worried glance over his shoulder at me as he left and I sighed in exasperation.

...

Newton's was the same as always. I was thankful for the job, but really found it difficult to pretend to any enthusiasm for camping and hunting gear. Mike dragged in for his shift half-way through mine, obviously recovering from a hangover.

"Hi, Bella. You look tired. Late night?"

I rolled my eyes; his mom had said I looked tired, too. They hadn't commented so much on my looks during my zombie period. Or maybe they had and I just didn't remember it?

Mike was still talking. "So where did you guys go last night? I didn't see you at the parties I went to."

"Uh, nowhere. I mean, after dinner I just went home."

He looked at me speculatively. "Really? You and the big Indian kid having problems?"

"What?" I stared at him in disbelief. "Mike, his name is _Jake_, as you perfectly well know, and it's none of your business." I walked away, saying over my shoulder, "I'm going to go see if anything needs to be restocked."

Was he ever going to stop hoping we would get together? If I showed up alone to our twenty year reunion was he still going to get hopeful, even if he was fat, bald, and married with five kids?

Note to self: Do not attend any high school reunions.

…

Charlie was more silent than usual as we ate dinner that night. I tried to ignore it, but after a while I started to worry that something was wrong besides my situation with Jacob.

"Dad? Was everything okay at work today?"

He looked surprised. "Yeah, everything was fine." He took a deep breath. "Actually, I was thinking about something else. I talked to Billy today."

Crap. I should have kept my mouth shut. "Dad…"

"Now, Bells, I didn't call him about you and Jake; I called to see if he wanted to go fishing on Saturday. He said that Jake's in a bad way."

My chest hurt. "What does that mean, exactly?"

He scratched his head. "Not sure, really, just that he's upset. Billy said he won't tell him what's wrong. Now, I know I said I didn't want details, and I really don't, but I think maybe I need to know more about what's going on." He paused. "I won't tell Billy if you don't want me to."

That surprised me. I said slowly, "I appreciate that, Dad. I think that Jake should get to decide what his father knows, so please don't tell Billy anything." I took a moment to gather my thoughts; I wanted to give as abridged a version as possible. "Last night, Jake said something that made me realize how much more strongly he feels about me than I feel about him. I got upset, because I realized I've been using him to help me cope with… things. I need to figure out how to manage on my own without using Jake. It would be different if I felt the same way he does, but I don't. So we decided— well, I decided— to split up." I put my hands in my lap so he wouldn't see how they were shaking. "It was, um, amicable. No fighting or anything."

Charlie looked confused. "Bells, I thought you loved Jake. I heard you tell him that on the phone one night."

"I do love him— he's my best friend."

"But—"

"Dad, I love _Edward_," I interrupted forcefully.

He flinched back from me, looking horrified.

"This whole time, I've been loving Edward, and right now it feels like I always will love him. I've been trying not to think about him and it hasn't made anything any better. _I'm_ not better. I need to deal with this on my own— it isn't fair to Jake to-" My voice broke and I took a deep breath, willing myself to calm down. If I cried in front of Charlie we might both die of embarrassment.

We sat in silence for a minute. Charlie said slowly, "Okay, Bells." He got up and cleared his place, then paused and touched my shoulder as he headed to the living room. He said without looking at me, "I can see you're trying to think of what's best for Jake here, too. I'm… I'm proud of you for doing what you think is right."

I stared after him with my mouth open and felt my eyes fill. Crap. He had made me cry.

…

I took my time getting ready for bed. I knew I couldn't keep putting off thinking about this— I had to at least _try_ to heal. I had never allowed myself to actively think about my time spent with Edward— for a long time I couldn't bear to even think his name. It felt as though there was a hole inside me, tearing me apart. Being with Jake had made it better, but I could still feel wisps of pain around the edges of the hole and I was afraid— afraid of the pain, the inability to breathe, the feeling of being ripped open…

_Stop it_, I told myself firmly. It had been months since he left— the better part of a year, even. I could do this. I took a calming breath and burrowed under my quilt. My whole being cringed away from remembering the happy times, so I forced my mind back to the afternoon Edward left me.

I ran over it in my head, wishing he'd been right and that my memory _was_ no more than a sieve. It would have been nice not to remember this with such clarity. When I was done I was curled tightly into a ball and shaking, but I was also confused. Two things were obvious:

First, that I had been remembering him as saying things he didn't say. I would have sworn he'd said that he didn't want me and that I wasn't good enough for him, but he hadn't. Of course, he had agreed when I'd said the former to him, so maybe he would have agreed to the latter, too. But regardless of what he thought, why had I twisted what he'd actually said, which was bad enough, into something worse? Did I really think so little of myself?

The second was that I had been right last night— Edward's insistence that I stay safe made no sense. In the entire conversation, the only time he'd shown any real emotion was when he was demanding that I not do anything reckless or stupid. And then the last thing he'd said to me before he left was to take care of myself. Considering the circumstances— you know, that he was leaving me and breaking my heart and saying he loved me _in a way_, the… the… _jerk_— I didn't understand his fixation on my well-being.

Stupid, confusing vampire.

I didn't know if I'd made any real progress tonight, but I guessed making myself think about it was a step forward, no matter how confused I was. I pulled the quilt closer to my face and tried to go to sleep.

That night, unsurprisingly, I dreamed about Edward. We were snuggled together on the sofa, the old afghan tucked around me to keep me warm. I was asleep, but Edward was talking to me and idly stroking my hair, his warm topaz eyes on my face. I couldn't hear everything he said; his voice was drifting in and out.

"…never had much patience with Romeo… destroyed his own happiness… doth teach the torches to burn bright… two blushing pilgrims… it is my love… with a kiss I die… ease of the suicide… humans have it so easy… wasn't going to live without you… never put you in danger again… moot point..."

I woke up as he asked, every word clear and distinct, "But what would I do without you?" I could smell his cool breath on my face, but the scent dissipated as I came fully awake.

No! I didn't want to wake up!

I realized I was crying, tears slipping down my temples into my hair. I rolled over and buried my face in my pillow, resisting the urge to scream as the grief and loss tore through me afresh. If healing meant having dreams like _that_, I didn't know if I wanted to do it. It was too hard. And what was with my dream-self sleeping through it? I had been asleep in the dream with Edward and Jacob, too— what was _wrong_ with me to be sleeping through all this stuff?

I hit my pillow with both fists, then got up and flung into the bathroom, closing the door just a little too hard. Maybe my subconscious was trying to tell me something, but I was too irritated to try and figure it out.

I was halfway through brushing my teeth when I realized that what happened in the dream was familiar. Edward had said all those things to me the afternoon of my wretched birthday, when we watched Romeo and Juliet. Not that I had been stupid enough to _sleep_ through it then. I huffed under my breath and nearly choked on my toothpaste.

My plan had been to clean the house today, but while I was putting my toiletries away my room started to irritate me, too. Take out the desk and bleach the curtains, and it would look exactly as it had when I was a child. Swap the bed for a crib, and it would look the way it did when I was a _baby_. It was ridiculous.

I grabbed my wallet and stomped down the stairs. I was going shopping.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So she's finally starting to think about things. :) Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers!**


	4. Under Love's Heavy Burden

.

_Under love's heavy burden do I sink. _

_-Romeo_

…

Edward

Tuesday morning, 13 June - Wednesday morning, 14 June 2006

...

Jacob left as the sun was rising, his mind fuzzy with exhaustion, muttering about taking his car home before someone reported it as abandoned. Before he left he glared at me and reminded me of my promise, as though I needed any reminder from him. I nodded in acknowledgement, resisting the nearly overwhelming urge to shoo him away with my hands, as one would a yappy, annoying little dog.

The wind blew past me after he stalked away, taking the worst of his abominable stench with it, and I gladly inhaled the clean air. Ugh, how could Bella stand to be around him? She wouldn't be able to smell him as well as I could, of course, but surely he must be a little offensive to her nose?

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I answered it without bothering to check who it was. Honestly, I was surprised she hadn't called hours ago, if only to yell at me for the agreement I'd come to with the wolf.

"Hello, Alice."

"Don't you 'Hello, Alice' me! Where have you been? I haven't been able to see you for hours!"

"What?" I ran deeper into the woods since this seemed likely to be a lengthy conversation. "What are you talking about? I've been right here."

"But… I couldn't see you, Edward! I knew you were going to Bella's, and I saw you in the trees outside her house, and you were watching her in the car, and she got out and was with some huge guy, and then all of a sudden you were gone, and I couldn't see you, and Bella was crying, and…" Her voice trailed off and she took a shaky breath. I heard Jasper murmuring soothingly in the background, and realized she'd been afraid. Afraid that I'd caused a scene or done something to hurt myself, most likely. I rubbed my chest, weary and guilty and so sorry for the unending grief I've been inflicting on everyone I love.

"Alice, I'm fine, truly," I said gently. "You can see me now, right? You can see I'm fine."

"I see you, rubbing your chest, like always," she replied grumpily. "You aren't fine, Edward."

I rolled my eyes, trying to cheer her up. "Did you see me roll my eyes at you, like always?" I rolled them again, exaggeratedly, for good measure.

She stifled a giggle. "Stop trying to distract me. Were you really there all night? Why couldn't I see you?" Now she sounded offended, like I'd purposely done something to block her sight.

"I have no idea. The spot I was in when you called was the spot I was in all night. I wonder… Alice, maybe it was because of the wolf. It sounds like you could see me up until he saw me, and then you couldn't see me again until he left."

"Wait, wait, wait. What wolf? And you were with a _wolf_ all night? What about Bella?"

There was a growing cacophony of voices in the background. The entire family must be in the room with her now.

"I'm not going to run off into the sunset with the wolf, Alice," I said dryly.

She growled at me. "You know that's not what I meant! You're so infuriating sometimes, Edward. I'm putting you on speaker."

I smirked, wondering if that was her idea of punishment.

"Hello, Edward," Carlisle said calmly. "How are you?"

His voice had the painful edge of caution it almost always had when he spoke to me now. He had begun to gradually relax and lose it, but he had been more cautious than ever since my chair throwing incident. Alice was right, as usual. This was punishment.

"Hello, Carlisle. Hello, everyone. I'm fine; how are you?"

There was a chorus of replies and I realized everyone was there, even Rosalie. While I hoped they hadn't been too worried, I was touched that they all still cared so much about me. I have to admit, there's a part of me waiting for the day when I irreparably alienate all of them.

I hope that day is still far off. I miss them now. I can't imagine how much I'll miss them then.

"I'm sorry if you were all worried. I had no idea Alice couldn't see me."

"Yes," Carlisle replied. "We discussed calling you, but since she couldn't see you at all we thought it best to wait for a while. We weren't sure what sort of situation you were in, but we didn't want to distract you if something needed your undivided attention."

"Well, I can't say it was the most pleasant evening I've ever had, but I wasn't in any danger."

Esme asked anxiously, "But Edward, what is this about a wolf?"

"Ah, well, remember how we thought the Quileute wolf gene had died out? It hadn't."

Jasper raised his voice over the ensuing din. "Are you in danger, Edward? Is Bella?" I could imagine what his mind would sound like now, awash in strategies and tactics.

"No, they're familiar with the treaty and, from what I can tell, are willing to honor it. Bella is apparently friends with all of them. Her, uh, boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, is one of them."

"Well, which is it?" Emmett demanded. "Boyfriend or ex-boyfriend?"

"Ex. I think. When I arrived they were having a bit of an emotional conversation, but he did a good job of not thinking about it, so I'm not sure what happened."

"Well, if you think he's her ex, why are you still out in the woods? Go find her!"

"I will, but not yet, Emmett. I heard things Bella said, about needing to work through her feelings, about me mostly, so I agreed to wait a week." It sounded really stupid now that I'd said it out loud and I cringed, knowing what his reaction would likely be.

"You're just going to let her get over you? After all your angsting? What's wrong with you!?"

"Where shall we start?" Rosalie muttered.

Jasper cut in. "Edward, when you say that he did a good job not thinking about it, do you mean that he knows about your ability?"

"Yes." That was one of the things he had intentionally thought about during the long night. He had hoped it would hurt me.

He was right. It had.

"How? Because I can't imagine you told him."

I pinched the bridge of my nose, dreading saying it. "Bella told him. About you and Alice, also."

I heard Alice gasp, and squeezed my eyes shut, the images he'd shown me running yet again through my head.

His surprise at her easy acceptance of the pack mind.

Her admittance that she'd known someone else who could read minds.

Cringing when saying my name, pain on her face.

A different day, telling him about Jasper.

About Alice.

Hyperventilating.

Arms wrapped around herself, talking about breaking into pieces.

Gasping that she was fine.

Saying it happened all the time.

I clawed at my chest and took a deep breath, forcing myself to calm down. I raised my voice to be heard over the hubbub on the phone, and was thankful it didn't shake. "She was pretty accurate about me and Alice, but she only told him about Jasper being able to calm people."

"Oh, so I suppose that makes it okay?" Rosalie snapped. "I told you, Edward, I _told_ you that getting close to her was a bad idea. I told you that we shouldn't trust her, but did you—"

I lost my temper. "Knock it off, Rosalie! Of course we can trust her! We were gone and she thought we were never coming back, and Jacob's bound by the treaty so he can't tell anyone anything! What difference does it make?"

"How do you know he's the only one she told? She could have told the whole town by now!"

"Because I _know_ her!" I shouted.

There was a long moment of silence. It didn't sound like anyone was breathing.

"I know her," I whispered. "I left her, and I broke her, and after Jacob phased there was finally someone she could be honest with. It's my fault. I should have never left."

No one replied, though I'm sure Alice and Emmett were longing to tell me they told me so. Probably Carlisle and Esme as well. Finally, Rosalie said icily, "I can't listen to this."

"Rose…"

"No, Emmett! When does this end? He's planning to talk to her in a week, but for what purpose? So he can stay with her for a while and leave her again? Drag himself miserably around the world and 'break' her again? How many more times is he going to put us all through this?"

"I'm not—"

"Whatever, Edward. I'm done." I could hear her heels clicking on the floor as she stormed away.

Emmett sighed. "I'm sorry, Ed."

"Not your fault."

"She'll never admit it, but she misses you. We all do."

"I miss you guys, too," I said quietly. I was making everyone unhappy. I hated it.

"She's right about one thing, Edward," Carlisle stated in his unruffled way. "You need to think about your intentions. If you aren't willing to stay with her, no matter what occurs, then perhaps it would be kinder to leave her alone."

"I won't leave her again, unless she tells me to. I can't. I just… I can't." I felt like I was admitting a huge weakness, but I continued on, voicing my deepest fear. "I don't know if she'll want me to stay. I saw her, in his head, and she… I hurt her. Badly. She may not want anything to do with me."

"She loves you, Edward. She'll forgive you."

"She loved me, Esme. I don't know how she feels about me now." I realized I was rubbing my chest again. I started walking back toward Bella's house. I was too far away.

Esme took a shaky breath and Carlisle changed the subject. "Is Jacob the only wolf, or are there more?"

"There's definitely more. I'm not certain of the number, but at least eight."

"Eight!"

"Holy shit!"

"Language, Emmett," Esme reproved him.

"Edward, I really think we should join you. You shouldn't be there alone with so many of them."

"I'm fine, Jasper, really. I'm not going to do anything to break the treaty, so I doubt if I'll see any of them besides Jacob. Just have Alice keep an eye on me."

"I can't _see_ them, remember? If they decide to tear you apart, I won't see it!"

"Do you see me talking to Bella on Monday?"

"Yes."

"Just keep watching that, Alice. If it goes away, then you know there's a problem. If you think something's wrong, call me. And I'll stay in touch, I promise."

"I can see that you will, so okay. For now. By the way, Bella should be leaving for work in six minutes and thirty-seven seconds. If you're interested." She knew perfectly well that I was interested, smug little pixie. I could envision the way her eyes would be crinkled with amusement.

"Thank you, Alice. Everyone. I'm sorry you were all worried."

"We're just glad you're okay, son. Be careful."

…

Mike Newton is amazing.

That is in no way to be taken as a compliment. It's astonishing how little it took to renew his hope that Bella would one day be his. I watched through his eyes and snickered as Bella put him in his place. Then his mind devolved into a cesspit of mental imagery as she walked away and my chuckles turned to growling.

Disgusting boy. It was beyond comprehension that he thought himself worthy of her.

I continued moving from mind to mind to watch her, thankful that the store was busy, giving me an ever-changing variety of minds to choose from. To my relief, she had only stumbled once so far; for the most part she moved about smoothly, competently helping customers with an impersonal smile on her face. Her apparent self-possession was causing niggles of doubt about my decision to approach her.

She didn't seem as though she was suffering from the loss of me.

I thought about what Emmett said earlier; his protestation that I was letting her get over me. The wolf had said she wanted to do so. Perhaps I should leave her alone. She was safe now, no thanks to me, and for all I knew she was on her way to being happy.

Truthfully, I had been surprised to hear that she still retained any feelings for me. I had expected her to get over me, had even tried, for her sake, to desire it. Humans had always seemed so fickle to me, their affections so changeable and weak. It wasn't that I hadn't believed her when she said she loved me. I could see it in her eyes and feel it in her touch, and if I'd had any doubts they would have been laid to rest every time I heard Jasper read her emotions. I had known Bella loved me. But human love and vampire love are two entirely different things.

Human love, like humans, changed. Vampire love, like vampires, was unchanging. My love for Bella would never cease to exist until I did. It would be unfair to hope for that kind of love from her when she is as bound by her nature as I am by mine.

Last night, when I'd realized she wasn't happy with the boy, my path had seemed so clear: approach her, apologize, and beg for forgiveness. Beg her to take me back, or to at least allow me in her life in some small capacity. That had been my plan when I came here in March. I know now how truly weak I am, and that if she chose to be with me I would never be strong enough to stay away from her. I would never again be able to bring myself to leave her, even for her own safety.

Knowing all that, and knowing that she was trying to get on with her life, wouldn't it be better for me not to approach her at all? To just check up on her and watch her from a distance?

I eyed my keys and considered leaving, then gasped and curled my body around the pain surging through my chest. Why was it so hard to do what was best for her? Why did my selfishness always outweigh my love?

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I sighed tiredly as I answered it. Undoubtedly, the visions of me talking to Bella on Monday were beginning to flicker.

"Hello, Alice."

I expected her to berate me, but instead she said cheerfully, "Hello, Edward! Please be outside Bella's house no later than six-fifteen, and make sure you're somewhere you can hear the conversation in the kitchen, all right?"

"What? Why?"

She giggled. "You'll see. Just promise me, okay? It's really important that you're there. Do you promise?"

"All right, all right. Calm down. I'll be there." I rolled my eyes at her, hoping she saw it.

"Yay!" I could hear her clapping, the manic little vampire. Jasper must not be there to calm her down, or maybe he was just having fun letting her torture me. "Oh, and the sun will be out when Bella's shift is over, so there's not much point in hanging around there. You won't be able to leave when she does, if you stay. You may as well return your rental car since your Volvo is still in the garage; the sun won't be out in Port Angeles today at all so you'll be safe enough. If you have time after that you could always clean the house. It must be horridly dusty!"

"Thanks, Alice," I said sarcastically. "How would I ever manage my day without you?"

"Oh, you're welcome, Edward!" she chirped, purposefully oblivious. "You know I'm always happy to help out. Don't forget, no later than six-fifteen! Oh, and Edward? If you keep rolling your eyes at me like that, they may just roll right out of the sockets. Then what will you do? It's not like there are vampire ophthalmologists." She hung up on me before I could respond, and I couldn't help it. I laughed.

…

Several hours later I stood in our garage looking at the crookedly-parked form of my Volvo, which seemed small in the large, empty space. All of the other vehicles were gone, of course, even my Vanquish, which I'd asked Rosalie to put in a long-term storage facility in Seattle for me. They would keep it in great running order, periodically starting the engine and moving the car to prevent flat spots on the tires. No one had expected the Volvo to sit here so long, and I wondered how much work it would need to get it back in shape.

I took the edge of the cover in my hands and flicked it straight up in the air so it wouldn't mar the clear coat, then stepped back in surprise.

The wheels were off and it was up on jack stands.

I ran a gentle hand over the hood of the car, touched that even though they must have been upset with me for staying away, someone had come back and taken care of this for me.

I found the wheels stashed away in one of the large cabinets that lined the back wall and put them back on, my fingers easily tightening the bolts to the correct torque, then reattached the hubcaps. I reached to open the driver's door so I could pop the hood and see if the battery cables were disconnected, and froze with my fingers on the handle.

Would it still smell like her?

That was why the Volvo was here. It had been so redolent with her scent that after leaving her I could barely stand to be in the car long enough to get it back here.

The day I'd left Bella in the woods had been the worst day in my existence.

Worse than the last days of my human life, struggling to breathe through the blood and phlegm that filled my lungs, realizing that I was going to die before I'd barely had the chance to live.

Worse than waking to the insatiable thirst for human blood, and my horror at what I had become.

Worse than the day I'd caught sight of my reflection in a pane of glass as I drained my last human victim, and realized I was more monstrous than any of my prey.

Worse than nearly committing mass murder in the Biology classroom and exposing us all.

Worse than pulling James off Bella's bloody, shattered body, and being afraid I would kill her myself when I sucked his foul venom out of her.

Worse than needing to defend her from my own brother's attack.

Worse than watching her sleep later that night, bruised and stitched and more precious than anything else in the world, and having to accept that the scales had finally tipped— no longer being able to deny that the peril I brought with me far outweighed whatever happiness I gave her.

Worse than the days of waiting to leave her, of arguing with my family and helping them pack, of planning every hurtful word I would say to her, of ignoring the pain and worry on her face as I distanced myself from her.

Worse than the agonizing, meaningless days I'd since spent without her.

Worse. Leaving her that day was worse. That day I had purposefully set out to hurt her. That day she'd finally seen what I had been telling her all along: that I was a monster.

If she didn't think that, how could she have ever believed me?

For she did believe me. I saw it on her face. She really believed that I didn't love her. That I didn't want her. How could she have been so easily swayed? After all the ways I'd tried to demonstrate my love, all the times I'd spoken of it, it had only taken one mendacious sentence to break her faith in me.

_Bella, I don't want you to come with me._

Nine words. And poof! All her confidence in me was gone. She finally saw me as monstrous, only it wasn't because I was a vampire.

Did she think I'd merely been amusing myself with her? That I did this everywhere we lived? Did she think that I'd been lying to her all along about my feelings? That it was all just a game to me? That I'd never really loved her at all?

I had shared so much of myself with her during our six months together, more than I'd shared with any other creature. I should have had to work, and work hard, to make her believe my lies, but instead it only took one sentence. I thought she knew me. Why had she not known I was lying?

As always happened when I thought about this, I wished it was possible for me to vomit.

I suppose I should have been grateful that it was so easy to make her believe me. If I'd had to spend hours convincing her I may not have had the fortitude to see it through. Vampires have an instinctive need to protect their mates, and on that wretched day it had been so difficult to ignore those impulses. I had kept my face impassive while lies tripped off my tongue. I had disregarded the pain on her face even as I knowingly caused her more. I'd left her, broken and alone, and dashed around through the woods to my car. When I'd heard her walking away from the house, I had resisted the nearly overpowering urge to go to her and instead forged a note to leave for Charlie.

I had sped away, fighting the visceral need to go back, not breathing because I couldn't bear to inhale her scent when I would never be with her again, yet unwilling to roll down the windows and air the car out. I had driven faster and faster as I realized that I wouldn't be able to take the car with me as I'd planned, and took the turn onto my drive too quickly, nearly clipping the bumper on a tree. I had torn through the twists and turns of the long driveway, skidded into the garage, closed it up behind me, and begun running.

I hadn't stopped until I was in Montana.

I shuddered, dragging my mind away from the destruction I'd wreaked in Glacier National Park, and refocused on the car, realizing there were deep impressions of my fingertips in the handle. I smoothed them out, taking an unnecessarily long time to do it, afraid to open the door.

I hoped it still smelled like her. What would I do if it didn't? I would have lost everything, besides my memories and the photograph of her.

Frustrated by my own angst, I yanked the door open and flung myself into my seat, slamming the door behind me, and took a deep breath. Her scent enveloped me, both the fiercest hammer blow and the most comforting embrace. It filled my nose and blazed a fiery trail down into my lungs, and my eyes stung with phantom tears I could never shed.

Oh God, how I'd missed her.

I closed my eyes, picturing her turned towards me in her seat, with a smile on her face and mischief in her eyes. She usually sat that way as I drove, her hips twisted beneath the restraint of the seat belt and her left leg pulled up onto the seat. I would fret about her safety, sitting that way, and she would laugh and inform me if I was that worried I should drive slower. So I would drop my speed by five or ten miles an hour and she would say that made her safe enough not to have to turn around. _I have to watch you, Edward_, she would tease me. _You're just so beautiful I can't help it._ I would scoff and she would giggle, and it was warm and happy and I just _belonged_ with her, the way I never had with anyone else. I was lost without her.

I rubbed the pain in my chest and took slow, deep breaths of her scent. I kept her lovely face in my mind's eye and tried to pretend she was still with me.

…

Why on earth had Alice insisted I be here for this conversation? At first Bella and her father had barely spoken a word to each other, and now Chief Swan was talking about the wolf being in "a bad way."

Not that I couldn't sympathize with his pain—empathize even!—but hearing about it was not the way I wanted to spend my evening.

I'd found a spot where I could see Bella's face, so at least there was one redeeming element of being here.

Bella started talking about why she had broken up with Jacob. Was that what Alice wanted me to hear? It _was_ useful information. I was wondering what "things" Bella was using the wolf to help her cope with, when I heard it.

It.

The reason that Alice, bless her meddling little heart, had told me to be in this exact place at this exact time.

"Dad, I love _Edward_."

I took a shocked step backwards, forgetting that I was standing on a tree branch, and dropped ungracefully to the ground.

She loves me.

I had lied to her, and hurt her, and run away from her when she needed me, and left her alone and in danger.

And still, somehow, she loves me.

I fell to my knees and covered my face with my hands, wishing I could cry from sheer relief. My dead heart throbbed, but the pain felt different somehow.

She loves me.

I wondered if God would be offended if I thanked him.

…

Bella was deep into sleep when I heard the wolf's mind approaching. He was tired, anguished, and hostile.

Wonderful. Tonight should be grand.

"Why are you on your knees?" he asked caustically. "Waiting for me to kill you?"

He gave me another mental show of tearing me apart, this time with me willingly exposing my neck to his teeth, and I rolled my eyes. "I'm thankful," I told him.

"So, what, you expect me to believe you were praying?" His tone said he didn't believe it.

"Perhaps," I said placidly. He could growl and foam at the mouth all he wanted. He wasn't going to ruin my mood.

"Leech, you really think God wants to hear from _you_?"

I shrugged and got to my feet, dusting my knees off. "Probably not, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm thankful."

He eyed me angrily, his mind suspicious. "Did you talk to her?"

"Wouldn't be out here if I had."

"What, you think it's going to be that easy? You'll just talk to her and waltz right back into her life?"

I shrugged, but otherwise ignored him. Bella was starting to mumble in her sleep—something about goldfish, nachos, and a confusing angel—and I'd much rather listen to her ramble about nonsense than talk to him about anything. I didn't hear him plotting anything in his head, so the sudden barrage of mental images took me by surprise.

Bella on the ground in the forest, soaked from the rain, blankly repeating, "He's gone."

A haggard Charlie fishing with the wolf and his father, telling Billy how lifeless she'd become, and how she woke screaming every night.

Bella, looking too thin, pale, and exhausted, showing up at his house with broken motorcycles.

Scene after scene of the two of them in his garage, him chattering away as he rebuilt the motorcycles, her smiles and laughter ever so slightly unnatural and not reaching her eyes.

Scene after scene of Bella with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, of her gasping for air, of her flinching away from music, of anguish on her face when she heard my name.

Bella flying down the road on a motorcycle, losing control and sliding across the ground with the bike on top of her.

Bella realizing Victoria was hunting her and dry heaving in terror.

Bella saying my family left because she was nothing but a human, that she was nothing special.

Bella screaming as she _jumped off a cliff_, the wolf rescuing her from the storm-tossed water and beating on her back as water spewed from between her blue lips.

I heard a strange, animalistic keening. It took me a moment to realize that it came from my own mouth, and that my hands were clawing at my chest and my hair. The mental assault petered out, and he stared at me in something like horror.

"You… you don't… you can't…" _love her_, his mind finished, as he started to shake. _You're not supposed to be able to. You're not! _His body blurred and exploded, bits of his clothing raining down around us like the strangest of confetti. I crouched automatically, prepared to defend myself, but instead of attacking he turned and ran, a tormented reddish mass of fur.

I listened to his mind get farther and farther away, and sagged against a tree, mentally exhausted. I wished that those images, his memories of exactly how badly I'd injured my mate, could somehow be expunged from my memory, but I knew I would have them, unfading, for the rest of my existence. Needing to see her healthy and well, I pulled her picture out of my wallet, running my finger in a well-practiced path down the curve of her cheek.

I'd stolen the picture from her. I'd skipped class the day I left her, one of the few we didn't have together, and had run through the woods to her house. I'd gathered up her birthday presents and her pictures of me, then stood by her window for the longest time, unable to bring myself to leave what had sometimes been our haven, immersed in our combined scent and wanting to scream from the agony of what I was doing. In the end, I couldn't bear to take everything of me away from her, but was afraid it would make things harder on her if I put it back, so I hid it all under her floorboards.

Except for one thing. There was a picture of us that she had inexplicably folded in half and put in her photo album, with only my side showing. My face was ugly in its cold impassivity—I would have understood if she had put it with my side down, but I never understood why she hadn't just thrown the picture out if she didn't like her side of it. I'd snatched it back out of the hole and torn her side off before I could think better of it, hiding what I had done with the CD and then the floorboard.

I slid my fingertips down her cheek and then over her hair, from the top of her head to where it curved around her shoulder. There were two slight indentations marking the familiar path.

Up in her room, Bella was restless, still talking in her sleep. Eventually, I realized by the things she was saying that she must be dreaming about watching _Romeo and Juliet_ with me the afternoon of her birthday.

I remembered lying on her couch, her back pressed against my front, my arms around her and my lips in her hair, and feeling so perfectly happy. Even as I talked about provoking the Volturi into killing me if she died, it seemed like such a distant, impossible thing, something reserved for far into the future. Like we were in a bubble that nothing could pierce.

I'd been a fool.

I stroked the photo again with the gentlest of touches, remembering the silk and satin texture of Bella's hair and skin. I'd needed to get the picture laminated about a month after I left because my fingers were beginning to wear away the surface of the image. The girl at the office supply store had offered to trim the torn edge smooth before laminating it, but I'd told her to leave it. I ran my finger down it now, feeling the jagged bumps and ridges, so symbolic of what I had done to us.

Bella slept silently for a time; peacefully, I hoped. I could hear her father in the house getting ready for work, thinking about fires… someone setting fires… a boy perhaps? His mind was as difficult to read as ever. After he left Bella began dreaming again of us watching _Romeo and Juliet_, muttering the things she had said back then. She grew more and more agitated and restless, finally snapping, "Would you want me to go _off_ myself?"

I flinched, wondering if that was what she had been attempting to do when she leapt from the cliff. Why else would she have done it during a storm? I couldn't help but think of Esme, that jumping from a cliff was how she had chosen to end her life. Thank God the wolf had seen Bella jump, and saved her.

Bella woke abruptly, her heart racing. I returned the photo to my wallet and leapt up into a tree so I could see her.

She was lying face down, a way she never slept. She hit her pillow viciously and propelled herself off the bed, grabbed her toiletry bag, and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

I blinked. What was that about? And had she been crying?

Ten minutes later she was back, dressed for the day, face washed and hair brushed smooth, her eyes red-rimmed. She _had_ been crying. She cast a hostile look around her room, grabbed her wallet, and left. She headed downstairs, but when she went out the front door without even stopping for breakfast I started to panic.

My phone rang before I could move, and Alice was talking before I had it to my ear.

"Calm down! She's fine, Edward. She's just going shopping."

"She doesn't like shopping," I pointed out skeptically.

"She's going to get some things for her room: curtains—ooh, I like them—and a rug, and some other things. She's going to the Walmart in Port Angeles—I don't know why she would want to shop _there_, but the curtains _are_ pretty so I guess it's okay." She ignored my snort. "She'll be back in about three hours, and she's going to go through a drive-through for food. So stop worrying!"

I ran a hand through my hair, feeling conflicted. "Are you sure she'll be okay? I could follow her."

"No, don't! She'll see your car if you do, and while it might be okay, she might also drive into a tree. And seeing it will upset her, even if she doesn't know it's you. So just stay there. Surely you can find something else to do? You haven't cleaned the house yet…"

I made a rude noise. "Goodbye, Alice."

Jumping lightly to the ground, I pulled Bella's picture back out of my wallet. I stroked my fingers over the curve of her cheek, and wondered if she had ever found the rest of her things under the floor. It didn't seem likely. Surely if she had she wouldn't think that she was "nothing special." How could she even _think_ that? Perhaps I should go check. She couldn't properly come to terms with what I did unless she had more evidence, right?

My phone buzzed with an incoming text from Alice… a huge smiley face.

I looked around cautiously and listened for any nearby thoughts before darting across the yard and up through Bella's window. I had a floorboard to loosen.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: As I'm sure you noticed, I've taken some liberties with Alice's sight- she couldn't see Jake and Bella while they were together, but I saw no reason why she couldn't see Edward watching them and see them through him. Edward doesn't fall out of her sight until he lets Jake see him and enters into Jake's sphere of influence, so to speak. Then while Jake and Edward were together she couldn't see Edward, but she could see Bella cry herself to sleep. So poor Alice was a little freaked out. :)  
><strong>


	5. Is There No Pity?

.

_Is there no pity sitting in the clouds_

_That sees into the bottom of my grief?_

_-Juliet_

…

Bella

Wednesday, 14 June - Thursday, 15 June 2006

...

I returned from Port Angeles with new curtains, a can of spray paint for my wastebasket, two framed paintings, a small bookcase, a throw rug for beside my bed, and a new shade for my bedside lamp. I had considered painting the walls, but that was more aggravation than I felt like dealing with. I could deal with light blue walls; I just wanted to freshen the room up, make it look brighter, like a teenager lived in it, like it was _mine_. Mine as I am now, not when I was ten. Though really, it didn't look like my ten year old self either. It didn't look like anything.

I took the trash can outside and painted it on the grass. I looked at the sky suspiciously—it was overcast, but hopefully it wouldn't rain until I was done painting. It would need at least one more coat, and I wanted to do the inside too.

For the next few hours I worked in my room, running outside every thirty minutes to put a new coat of paint on the trash can. I decided since I was trying to improve my room I should clean out my closet too—I had spent months just tossing things in there and it was a horrendous mess. I found all kinds of stuff that I didn't realize was there—including a bag of things I'd meant to give away in April, holey tennis shoes I thought I had thrown out, and dirty socks—and when I unearthed the black trash bag in the far corner, at first I didn't realize what was in it.

It was the car stereo. I looked at it almost dispassionately—it only made me sad now, instead of angry or hysterical. I remembered clawing it out of my dashboard; it had been weeks before my fingers stopped hurting where I'd ripped my nails. Too bad Edward hadn't taken that with him when he left too, and saved me the trouble. But why had I brought it up here and hidden it instead of just throwing it in the trash can outside? _Oh well_, I thought, and shrugged. It wasn't like I was rational back then. I tossed the tennis shoes in with the stereo. I needed a trash bag anyway.

As I dragged the bag out of the closet, it caught on a loose floorboard and ripped open. I stared at it in disbelief, then grumbled under my breath as I went downstairs for a new bag. I bundled the old bag and its contents into the new, and threw more stuff in as I cleaned and organized. It was kind of shocking how much trash there was—I had thought I was a fairly clean person.

I brought the finished wastebasket in just as the first drops of rain began to fall, and looked around my room with a sense of satisfaction. I had managed to switch out the curtains without falling off my chair and killing myself, and I only hit my thumb once while hammering the nails for the pictures. I was thinking about rearranging the furniture, but I was going to have to get Charlie to help me with that. There was no way I'd be able to move it on my own—the bed, maybe, but not the dresser.

I decided to take the trash out to the can right away, even though there were bound to be dust bunnies and who knew what else to sweep up, once we'd moved the furniture. I didn't want Charlie finding the stereo in the bottom of the bag and asking questions. I was sure he'd seen the gaping hole in my dashboard months ago, but I still didn't want to talk about it—and if he saw the condition the stereo was in, I'd get a lecture about proper tool usage, too. No, thank you.

I hefted the bag over my shoulder, took two steps, and tripped over that stupid loose floorboard, landing hard on my right knee. What the _hell_ was the problem with the floor?

I clutched my knee—crap, that hurt—and shifted around to look at the floorboard. No wonder it wouldn't stay down—the nail on one end moved loosely in its hole and the other was missing. Maybe the head of the nail caught on the bag and got pulled out? I looked around and didn't see it anywhere. Could it have fallen under the floor? That seemed weird, but… I pulled the floorboard up a bit more, but it was still dark enough under there that there was no way I was going to just stick my hand in. What if there were spiders or something else gross? I got up to get a flashlight, rubbing my sore knee as I did. I was going to have another bruise. Wonderful.

I sat back down, pointed the flashlight in the hole, and was almost blinded by a reflected flash of light. Was there a mirror under there or something? What idiot would put a mirror under the floor? I aimed the light more cautiously, squinting, and realized there was a little pile of things in there. There was a rectangular box, and pictures, and a shiny silver CD.

I had nearly burned my retinas with a CD.

And there were pictures.

And a box. Which undoubtedly contained airline vouchers.

The beam of light was bouncing all around. I tried to make my hands stop shaking. Why were these things under my floor?

_Why were these things under my floor?!_

Maybe thinking about Edward had been a really bad idea. Maybe I'd spent too much time doing it and my mind had finally snapped. That possibility made much more sense to me than that he had intentionally left these things here.

I poked the CD with a trembling finger, to make sure it was real, and it slid off the top of the pile. I could see little bits of Edward on the untidy stack of pictures underneath, but it was the one on top that made me suck in my breath, because it was only half a picture. Edward's face stared up at me, cold and expressionless. It was the picture I had folded in half because I looked so plain next to him—but my side of the picture had been torn off.

I nudged the pictures with my fingertip to spread them out, and was momentarily distracted by the picture of Edward in my kitchen, his eyes warm and his face amused. My breath came faster. He was so… _indescribably_ beautiful. I had thought I would never forget his face, but I clearly hadn't remembered it well enough. I tore my eyes away from him and looked at the others: Edward with Charlie in the living room, Edward in the background of a few of the cafeteria shots. There were the doubles which had "mysteriously" disappeared from my mother's packet.

The torn off picture of me wasn't there.

My immediate reaction was pure, undiluted rage. How_ dare _he? How dare he take a picture of me when he left! Hey, Mr. It-Will-Be-As-If-I-Never-Existed, why didn't it get to be as if _I_ never existed as well? How was that fair—why wasn't _he_ left with nothing? And why did Mr. I-Have-A-Perfect-Memory even _need_ a photograph? What was _wrong_ with him?

I scooted back from the hole in my floor, my entire body shaking, and tried to breathe. My head was swimming, and I felt oddly as though I was balancing on the edge of a precipice—sort of the feeling I had when I went cliff diving with Jacob, in that instant right before I jumped, but different in that the chasm before me seemed black and endless. I wondered if this was how Alice had felt when she was in the asylum, and if she had finally chosen the blackness. Maybe that was why she didn't remember being human.

I needed to talk to someone. I couldn't trust myself. I didn't understand what was going on; I didn't know for sure that this was even happening. Maybe my mind had snapped. Or maybe when I fell I hit my head, and now I was dreaming, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. I had to talk to someone. I'd call Ja—

That thought sobered me up a little—not so much that I had thought of calling him now, but that I _knew_ if I had found these things before graduation, I would have called him then. Even though I knew he loved me, I would have subjected him to my hysteria over finding these things. I was a terrible person.

I shoved self-recrimination to the side—I had the rest of my life for that and I still needed someone _now_. I needed to know if the things were real, because nothing made sense anymore. I needed to know they were real. But who could help me?

I forced myself upright, welcoming the pain in my knee since it helped clear my mind, and headed downstairs. I was still trembling enough to make me thankful Charlie had a railing I could cling to on the way down. The last thing I wanted was to fall and break my neck—then I would _never_ know what was going on.

I punched a number into the phone and heaved a sigh of relief when a familiar voice answered.

"Angela, thank God," I said shakily. "This is Bella. Yeah, I'm okay. Are you busy? I need to talk to you—please. Can you come over to my house, right now?"

…

I iced my knee while I waited for Angela to arrive, even though I could barely tolerate sitting still. I wanted to be moving, to be pacing, but I needed to be able to get back up the stairs. So, ice it was.

Finally, finally, there was a knock at the door. I threw the bag of ice towards the sink and hobbled as fast as I could to answer it.

Angela took one look at me and asked worriedly, "Bella, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I… will you come up to my room? Please?"

"Of course, but what happened to your leg?"

I hauled myself up the stairs. "I tripped."

"Oh, Bella," she said sympathetically. She followed my into my room, stopping in the doorway. "Oh, I love what you did in here! It looks great. What happened to the floor, though?"

"It lost a nail, or something. Um, this is going to sound crazy, but can you look under there and, uh, tell me if you see anything?"

She gave me an odd look, but knelt down to look. "Yeah, there's a CD and a bunch of pictures, and a couple of boxes…" She reached in, then got up and turned around, her hands full.

I couldn't breathe. My knees buckled and I sat down abruptly on my bed, my face in my hands.

Angela sat next to me and cautiously rubbed my back. "Bella, what are these things?"

"They're real?" I whispered.

"Bella, you're scaring me. Take a deep breath."

Her hand rubbed slow circles on my back, and I tried to breathe in time to it; breathing in on the up stroke, and out on the down. The black spots in front of my eyes slowly receded and I sat up straight. "Sorry."

"It's okay. I'm guessing you didn't know these were under your floor?"

I could hear the hysterical edge to my laugh, and judging by the expression on her face, so could Angela. I took another calming breath. "No, I thought Edward… I thought he took them."

"You thought he took your things?"

"He said… he said he wouldn't come back… he wouldn't interfere with my life… that it would be like he never… like he never… existed." I sucked in a deep breath, and continued in a stronger voice, "And then when I looked everything was gone." I pulled my legs up and wrapped my arms around them, feeling cold.

"He said that to you?" Angela gasped.

I just nodded.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, then she said, "It doesn't make sense. I mean, sure, he was acting weird the last few days before he left, but if he didn't want a long-distance relationship, why didn't he just say so? Why be so mean about it?"

I shrugged and said tonelessly, "He didn't want me."

"No way," she said flatly. "There is no way he didn't want you. You don't know what he was like before he met you. He seemed so bored all the time, but he changed even before you started dating. It was like you… woke him up or something. Then after you two got together he became a completely different person. And the way he would look at you…"

"He said so, Ang," I said stubbornly.

"Then he was lying. He had to be. Nothing else makes sense." She riffled through the pictures and held up the one of Edward in my kitchen. He was so beautiful that it hurt. I pressed my knees closer to my chest. "Who's he looking at in this?"

"Me," I whispered.

"When was this taken? How long before he left?"

I didn't even have to think about it. "Three days."

"Look at his face, Bella. He's either the best actor in the world, or he lied to you."

She was right, that was the only thing that made sense. But why would he lie?

She flipped through the other pictures, giggling at the some of the cafeteria ones, then gasped. "I can't believe it— I was right! Remember this? You had given your camera to Jessica and were watching all of us take pictures with it. You had the weirdest expression on your face… sort of detached, I guess. Edward was looking at you and he looked so tortured, like… I don't really know how to describe it. He looked like he was in horrible pain, like he should have been screaming or something. Then the next second he looked normal, so I thought maybe I imagined it or it was a trick of the light or… I don't know. I didn't think it really happened. But he's in the background of this picture, and look at his face—you can see the beginning or end of it there."

I looked, and my chest ached in response to the shadow of pain on his face. He must have heard what Angela was thinking to straighten his expression out so fast.

She tapped the pictures into a neat stack, frowning at the torn one on top. She didn't say anything about it, but I volunteered quietly, "I think he took that with him."

"He tore your picture?" she asked, still frowning.

"Yeah. Well, I had it folded in half in my scrapbook. He tore where it was folded."

"Why'd you fold it?" She sounded baffled.

I couldn't meet her eyes. "I looked so plain next to him."

"Bella! Why would you say that?" She found the whole one that he had taken from my mom's envelope and stuck it under my nose. "You don't look plain. A little… stressed out, maybe. But not plain."

I shrugged and rested my head on my knees.

"Edward must not have thought you were plain or he wouldn't have taken it with him," she pointed out, as though it were the most logical thing in the world.

I couldn't find a flaw in her logic. That didn't mean it made any sense though.

"I'm surprised he didn't take the whole picture with him, but maybe he didn't like the way he looked in this," she mused.

I snorted. "Edward always looks perfect."

"Well, sure, as far as bone structure and the symmetry of his face and all… I mean, yeah, he's like a statue of a Greek god, but that's exactly what he looks like in this. All marble coldness." She found the picture of him in the kitchen and held the two images side by side. "You can't tell me he doesn't look way better in this other one."

"Yeah," I whispered, tears stinging my eyes. I rolled my head so it was facedown on my knees.

"Really though, Bella, what difference does it make what he looks like? Not that I didn't enjoy looking at him over the years," she admitted, sounding a little embarrassed. "He's definitely easy on the eyes. But if he's a huge jerk, who cares if he's good looking?"

I lifted my head and scowled at her. "He's not a huge jerk."

"He is either the biggest, cruelest jerk to walk the face of the earth, or for some reason he decided to be an idiot and lie to you. My guess would be the idiot, but you know him way better than I do. Either way, his looks are the least important thing about him. Look at me—I'm dating a guy six inches shorter than me. We almost didn't get together because of it, and that would have been a shame, because we're great for each other."

"You are great for each other," I agreed.

"Yeah, but you're not getting my point. Sure, Edward's gorgeous, but is that the most important thing? Is that the only thing you like about him?"

"No! Of course not. He's kind and smart and generous and thoughtful and… and overprotective, but it was only because he wanted to… to take care of me and… keep me safe… and I miss him. I miss him so much. It's… I can't bear it. I can't… I can't breathe without him. I can't think about him… but I can't let myself forget about him, and…" I was crying too hard to talk now. Angela silently handed me the box of tissues from my desk and wrapped her arm around me.

I cried for a long time. Angela waited patiently and let me lean on her, and eventually took a tissue or two for herself. When my sobs finally turned to sniffles she went in the bathroom and got me a cold, wet washcloth for my face.

"I miss him," I said into the washcloth. "And it's not the way he looked, it's just _him_. He's way more beautiful on the inside than he is on the outside."

Angela gave me a one-armed hug, then said teasingly, "Had to be awesome being seen on his arm though."

I pulled the washcloth from my face and snorted. "No, it was awful."

"Awful!"

"Oh, you don't even know. Any time we would go somewhere, there would be all these women—beautiful women, older women—all staring at him, making excuses to come talk to him… wanting him, you know? And then they would look at me and look so confused, and you could tell they were wondering why on earth someone who looked like him was with someone who looked like me."

"Bella, who cares what they thought?"

"I know, I know! I would tell myself it didn't matter, but it was uncomfortable. And were they wrong? I mean, he's so beautiful and I'm just, I don't know, average. I could never look good next to him."

"First of all, I think you're seriously downplaying your looks. Secondly, how many of those women who ogled him looked as good or better than he did? Because, seriously, that guy…" She fanned herself with the CD case.

I laughed at the wide-eyed expression on her face, and admitted, "I feel kind of bad, because he wanted to take me places more often and I would be resistant. Not because I didn't want to go, but because I knew I would be getting this 'You're not worthy' vibe from people the whole time. He always seemed too good to be true, and it sucked knowing other people thought that way about us too." I looked down at my hands fiddling with the washcloth. "I wished sometimes that he would tell people off. Some women would be so persistent, and he would just ignore them. Sometimes he got irritated, but mostly…" I shrugged. "Not that I wanted him to be cruel about it, but… I don't know what I wanted him to do."

"Maybe tell them he was with you and they didn't have a chance so they should go away?"

"I guess so. That wasn't very realistic though, was it?" I pleated the washcloth into a fan.

"Well, it might have been hard for him to do that without being nasty. I don't blame you for wanting it, though. And I bet he wanted to do it sometimes, too. It must be hard to have people falling all over him like that—people who don't care if he's nice or a good guy, but only what he looks like. It must feel demeaning."

I had never thought about it that way. "Yeah, probably so," I agreed. I watched my hands undo the fan and fold the washcloth into triangles. "It's good to talk to you about this. I never felt like I could talk to anyone" _because he's a vampire_, my mind supplemented, "and it was… hard. All the pictures and things were gone, and sometimes… sometimes even though I _knew_ he was real, it seemed like he wasn't."

"He was definitely real," she said firmly. "I don't think anyone has a imagination that good."

I chuckled a little and blew my nose. "I used to have nightmares that he didn't exist. Still do, sometimes."

"No wonder, with the whole 'it'll be like I never existed' thing, and hiding your stuff and... I'd like to hunt him down and smack him, to be honest. I can't think of any reason he could have that would justify what he did to you. If he wanted to break up with you, fine, but don't do it like _that_." She smiled widely at me, a big evil grin the likes of which I'd never seen on her face. "So what's his address? I think I might take a little road trip."

"Angela!"

"Oh, come on, Bella," she said lightly. "I'll take Ben with me. He can hold him while I slap him upside the head. It'll be fun."

I snorted at the implausibility of that idea, and admitted, "I don't know where he is."

Her brow furrowed. "You're not in touch with Alice, either?"

"No," I said, not meeting her eyes. "She… he said a clean break would be better." I gathered up my dirty tissues and tossed them in my freshly painted wastebasket. I should have lined it with a bag.

Angela muttered something under her breath, then flushed red when I looked at her inquiringly. "Um, nothing. You've really never talked to anyone about this?"

"Not really. Jake a little bit, but…"

She sighed. "Yeah, I can't imagine you could really talk about it with him. So… where does he fit in with all of this?"

I wrapped my arms back around my legs. "We broke up the other day."

"Because he loved you too much?"

My eyes flashed to hers, horrified. "Does everyone know?"

"I don't know; I never talked about it with anyone, even Ben. But Bella, I've seen you happy. And with Jake…"

"Yeah," I murmured, my eyes welling up again. "Poor Jake. I'm so awful."

"You're not awful, Bella. You were just coping as best you could."

I disagreed, but didn't bother arguing.

"So you broke up with Jake the other day, and then found all this stuff today. That's kind of… I'm not sure whether I want to say great timing or strange, you know?"

"I don't know, either."

"So what's the verdict on Edward? Colossal jerk or lying idiot?" She sounded like she already knew the answer.

"Lying idiot," I admitted. "I just don't understand why. And which things were lies and which things weren't."

"You know him better than anyone besides his family, Bella. You'll figure it out."

…

I couldn't figure it out.

Once I acknowledged he'd lied to me it felt like every word he'd ever said to me was suspect. I'd been going in circles since Angela left, trying to figure out which things were true and which things were lies.

Clearly, he'd lied when he left me, the ramifications of which I wasn't willing to examine too closely yet, but it didn't necessarily follow that everything he'd said to me before that day was true.

I groaned and rolled over on my bed, rescuing the CD case from under my hip and putting it on the bedside table. I rummaged through the mess of pictures and pulled out the one of a beautiful Edward in my kitchen. "You are giving me a headache," I informed his crookedly-smiling face. "Stupid, beautiful, idiotic man. Angela said I know you," I muttered. "I'm beginning to wonder if I know anything useful about you. I know you're kind and thoughtful and gentle and overprotective, but how does that…" My words trailed off as all the puzzle pieces suddenly clicked into place.

The words I'd said earlier to Angela replayed in my mind.

_…__overprotective, but it was only because he wanted to… to take care of me and… keep me safe…_

From the very beginning, Edward had been fixated on my safety—or rather, on the danger I was exposed to by his existence in my life. I wasn't a fool; of course I knew he was dangerous, that his world was dangerous, but I loved him. Being with him was worth any danger I might encounter.

But he hadn't wanted me to feel that way. _This is wrong_, he'd groaned, when he realized I loved him. _Never say that_, he'd snapped, when I'd told him it was too late for my feelings to change.

Then the next day, at lunch, he'd cited his willingness to leave me for my own safety as proof that he loved me more.

Somewhere in my mind, I'd always known he might leave me. From the very beginning of our relationship, I'd known it was something he considered, but especially during those days after my birthday. I'd known what was coming and I'd refused to contemplate it, because the thought of him leaving was unimaginably painful. I'd shied away from the worst that could happen and focused on the worst I could handle, even after he'd told me the night of my birthday that he was thinking about right and wrong. He may as well have told me straight out, "Well actually, Bella, I'm thinking about leaving you," because somewhere in my mind, I knew that was what he meant.

And it wasn't like it was the first time he'd tried. While I was in the hospital in Phoenix, he'd wanted me to move to Jacksonville with my mother while he stayed far away from me, so he couldn't hurt me anymore. Because in Edward's eyes, what happened with James was all his fault.

_I have no problem with saving you, either—if it weren't for the fact that I was the one putting you in danger._

And then my birthday came and it was more than just his world I wasn't safe in, it was his own house.

_What happened with Jasper—that was nothing, Edward! Nothing!_

_You're right. It was exactly what was to be expected._

He'd left me not because I bored him, not because I wasn't enough for him, not because he _wanted_ to leave me, but because he loved me, and he was afraid for me. Because he thought he was hurting me by being in my life, and more than anything, more than his own happiness, more than even mine, he wanted me to be safe from him.

_If leaving is the right thing to do, then I'll hurt myself to keep from hurting you, to keep you safe._

Edward loved me.

And somewhere, out in the world, he was in agony.

I dropped his picture and clapped my hand over my mouth, bolting for the bathroom. But even as I vomited and wept into the toilet, my lungs felt a tiny bit looser, and the edges of the hole a little less painful.

…

I gathered everything up and hid it in my underwear drawer before Charlie got home from work. After dinner he nailed the board back into the floor and helped me rearrange my furniture. I was right about there being dust bunnies under the dresser, but under the bed there was only a crumpled tissue and a small, unfamiliar box.

It finally registered that Angela had said there were a _couple_ of boxes under the floor.

I scooped it up when Charlie's back was turned and tossed it in my closet, then tried not to act too eager for him to leave. I thanked him for his help and his compliments on the changes I'd made to the room, returned his impulsive half-hug, and smiled at him as he left the room. The instant he reached the bottom of the stairs, I shut my door, locked it, and rushed to my closet.

The box was small and hinged, perhaps three or four inches square and an inch high, covered in a faded black satin. I sat on the bed with my back against the wall and carefully opened it.

There was a slender silver bracelet inside, composed of alternating links, some with delicate floral engraving and the others inset with small crystals. It was beautiful.

There was a folded piece of paper beneath the bracelet, my name written on the outside in Edward's beautiful script. I opened it with shaking fingers.

_For my darling Bella, on the occasion of her eighteenth birthday._

_As you know, sweet girl, I don't have many memories of my parents. I do, however, remember my father giving this bracelet to my mother. I was about twelve years old and my father had been away on an extended business trip. He returned home with gifts for both of us—a new baseball mitt for me and this bracelet for my mother. Mother was especially happy with her gift—I remember that she gasped, "Oh, Edward!", flung her arms around him, and kissed his cheek. He actually turned a little red, and I vividly recall how revolted I felt. Perhaps that is why I remember it so clearly. In any event, I hope that you will love this bracelet as much as my mother did. Feel free to gasp my name and kiss me. I promise not to blush._

_I love you more than anything,_

_Edward_

I ran my finger over his name, feeling the dents his pen had left in the paper, tears sliding down my cheeks. Had he planned to give this to me after we got back from the party? It was so typical of him to find a way to give me a valuable gift, while still acceding to my demand that he spend no money.

Did he have it in his pocket when Jasper tried to kill me? While he drove me home and ranted about Mike Newton? While he thought about right and wrong and then kissed me so desperately? While he watched me sleep and made the decision to leave me?

I felt like my heart was breaking all over again, this time for him. How had I ever believed he didn't love me? I should have realized what his motivation for leaving was, and called him on it. Why did I believe him?

I climbed under my covers, feeling unaccountably cold, and cried for a while. Then I re-read the letter from Edward and smiled at the image of him as a wild-haired, pre-teen boy, so disgusted by a display of affection between his parents. I pulled the bracelet from its box and slid it over my fingers, turning my hand this way and that, admiring the way the crystals sparkled in the fading light.

I knew I should get up, take a shower and get ready for bed, but instead I held the folded letter to my heart, watched the bracelet shimmer, and tried my best not to think about a broken-hearted Edward wandering somewhere in the world. I wasn't aware of falling asleep.

That night there was a change to my old recurring nightmare. I walked through the dusky woods, searching, searching, growing more frantic as I tried to find what I was looking for. Just as I started to think there wasn't actually anything to look for, right before I usually started screaming, I stumbled into the clearing surrounding the Cullen's house.

It was like stepping back through time. The sea of ferns was gone, and it looked the way it used to, full of life and beauty. It was twilight, and the lights were on in most of the rooms, gently glowing through the open windows. I could hear the piano, but I stood paralyzed, too afraid to approach the door. I don't know how long I stood there, but eventually the music faded away and the lights went out and the ferns grew back around me, until the house looked deserted and scary again, a suitable haunt for vampires.

I woke with a start, daylight refracting from the bracelet straight onto my eyelids. Perhaps moving my bed so close to the window was a bad idea. Hopefully if I remembered to close my curtains it would help, because Charlie would kill me if I asked him to help move everything back so soon. I stumbled off to shower, hoping the water would wake me up and clear my mind.

It was a futile hope. I was so preoccupied with the things I'd discovered yesterday that I was completely distracted. Charlie had to tell me goodbye twice before it registered that he was leaving, and if he hadn't reminded me that I also had to go to work I would have completely forgotten about it. He left with a furrow between his brows, throwing an anxious look behind him. I resolved to get myself together so he wouldn't worry about me, and forgot my resolution in the next second.

Work was an unmitigated disaster. I clocked in late, because for ten minutes after I arrived, I simply sat in my truck, thinking. By the time I made it in the door, Mrs. Newton's face already wore a worried frown, which deepened as the day wore on and I made mistakes I hadn't made since my first days working there. She asked me three times during the course of my shift if I was okay, but didn't seem to believe me when I told her I was just tired. It was a relief to leave when my shift was over, and not just because I was desperate for peace and quiet in which to think.

I briefly considered driving to the Cullens' house to do my thinking, but changed my mind. Seeing it abandoned and overgrown wouldn't help me any. Instead, I went home and pulled everything back out from where it was hidden, and spread it out on my bed. I retrieved my CD player from my closet shelf, where it had spent the last nine months, and put the CD in to play.

Tears stung my eyes as the first notes filled the air, and I sank to the floor by my bed, my arms wrapped around myself. My lullaby told the story of Edward's love for me, his fascination and longing, his happiness and wonder, and then, at the end, his sadness. It was as if he'd written it knowing that his presence in my life wasn't a permanent thing, written it thinking that he would leave me, or I would leave him.

Maybe that was why it had been so easy to believe he didn't love me. Edward had always been prepared to say goodbye.

…

Dinner was surprisingly entertaining. Apparently Mrs. Newton had called Charlie after I left work, suggesting to him that I was doing drugs. He told me about it, his police chief eyes glued to me for any tells that I was lying or hiding something, but was reassured by my open-mouthed stare of disbelief and subsequent peals of laughter. He accepted my explanation of being tired and distracted, muttered under his breath about busybodies, and wandered off to watch ESPN, his good humor restored.

I washed the dishes, occasionally snorting into laughter—how was I going to be able to look that woman in the eye the next time I worked with her?—and headed back upstairs. I took a shower and got ready for bed, before sitting down at the desk with the things Edward had hidden from me.

I draped the bracelet across my wrist, thinking how surprising it was that Edward's mother and I should have such similar taste, given that we were separated by almost a century. It truly was beautiful, understated and dainty, not gaudy at all. I pulled the plane vouchers from the box for the first time, noticing with sadness that they had recently expired, and tried to imagine what it would have been like if we'd taken the trip together. What would my mom have thought of Edward? What excuse would he have given for staying inside out of the sun? Would we have walked on the beach after dark? Would his body have absorbed the heat, making him warm? I wished I knew the answers.

I replaced the papers in the box, my chest burning, and ran my finger over the image of Edward in my kitchen. I missed him horribly, but I was so tired of being in pain. Just so incredibly weary.

There had been a time that I wanted to feel the pain. It had been how I knew he was real—how all of them, Edward and Alice and Carlisle and the rest, how I had known they all were real. The pain had been the only thing I had left of them and I had clung to it, pushing it into a safe little bundle, afraid to let it out. Afraid that it would destroy me—either that I would be lost and broken and literally annihilated by the force of it, or that I would be able to process it and file it away, my memories of Edward and the rest of the Cullens eventually becoming faded and blurred, though never forgotten. I knew I would never forget them, forget the six months I spent as the heroine in a fairy tale, regardless of what he thought. How could I? The loss of him would always be with me, ever-present, chafing me under my skin. How could I embrace "normal" life after being so dazzled, and so happy? Why would he even want something so insipid for me? I had been content enough in my normal life before I'd met him, but I'd never really been _happy_ until him.

And now that I'd found all these things, this proof of existence that he'd left behind, and I knew that he loved me, that he'd loved me all along…

The agony of it had me bent in half and gasping.

Because even though the knowledge of his love, the sheer _rightness_ of it, had settled within me like a soothing balm, easing the edges of the hole, it didn't really fix anything. I couldn't force him to come back. I couldn't _make_ him be with me. He clearly thought that he was a liability—that he was too dangerous, too monstrous, and that I'd be safer apart from him. Little did he know that after he'd left I would be surrounded by werewolves and threatened by vicious vampires. We'd opened the Pandora's Box of the mythical world when we fell in love, and there was no way to get it all back inside. A normal human life- ha! From the moment he'd first touched me, that possibility had been off the table.

I opened my window and pulled my desk chair over so I could sit in front of it, and stared out at the trees. _Edward, where are you? _I thought desperately. I wished I had a way to contact him, to let him know that I finally understood why he'd left, that I forgave him for the way he did it. I stayed there until I was almost asleep, missing him and wishing I could will him to return to me. When I finally went to bed I closed the window but, as usual, left it unlocked. Just in case.

That night I dreamt that I drove to the Cullens' house. The fern sea was gone and the house was lit up and beautiful. I could see them through the windows: Alice and Esme sitting together on the sofa, Rosalie smiling, watching Emmett and Jasper play the Xbox, Carlisle coming down the stairs with a book in his hand. I couldn't see Edward, but I could hear him playing the piano. Alice called out to me in her wind chime voice, "Bella! Come on, Bella, come inside!" but I stayed, frozen, in my truck. The house gradually grew dark and silent, the Cullens fading from sight. Somehow, my dream-self knew that if I got out of my truck and approached the house everything would come back to life, yet there I sat, too afraid to get out and too afraid to drive away. I heard Alice say reproachfully, "Bella…"

And then I woke up.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So, what will Bella do now? I looked at the Eclipse timeline last night and realized that Wednesday night, when Bella finds the "silver" and "crystal" bracelet, is the same night that Edward gave Bella the "crystal" heart for her bracelet, and I didn't even plan it that way. LOL The bracelet is based on a real one I found online- it's from the 1910s, is beautiful, and is composed of hand-engraved white gold and diamonds. You didn't really think Edward would give her silver and crystals, did you? ;)**


	6. Sad Hours Seem Long

_._

_Ay me! sad hours seem long._

_-Romeo_

…

Edward

Wednesday, 14 June - Thursday, 15 June 2006

…

Nothing was going as I'd hoped.

Everything had seemed fine at first. Bella had returned from shopping and had busied herself cleaning and organizing, running in and out to paint her wastebasket while giving the sky looks of such suspicious menace that I wanted to laugh aloud.

Then she'd tripped over the loosened floor board and it had all gone downhill from there. Judging by the way she was walking, she'd injured her knee, and she'd nearly had a panic attack at seeing what was beneath her floor. She'd asked Angela to come over, and almost had another panic attack when Angela confirmed that her things really were there. Her reaction aside, the fact that she'd felt she _required_ confirmation was disturbing. Then, as if it weren't bad enough to have to watch Bella fall to pieces while talking about me, to hear the ways I'd injured and misunderstood her even while we were together, I'd also had to listen to one of the few humans whose opinion I respected mentally castigate me, visualize herself smacking me upside the head, and mutter that I was a "freaking jackass."

Not that I didn't deserve it. I deserved it all, and more. I should have never inserted myself into Bella's life. I'd known it was wrong and had done it anyway. It was reprehensible.

Angela went home, and now I was watching Bella's frustration as she tried to figure out my motivations. She grumpily told me—well, told a photograph of me—that I was giving her a headache, then froze, an arrested expression on her face. I watched as all the pieces fell together in her mind, and she realized exactly why I had left her.

If asked, I wouldn't have even attempted to predict her reaction. She never behaved in ways I would expect. Still, it shocked me when she clapped her hand over her mouth and ran to the bathroom.

I groaned as I listened to her cry and gag, the pain in my chest surging unbearably. I had never thought my leaving would make her suffer so. But really, when had she ever behaved like any other human? It had been beyond foolish of me to assume she would have a typically human reaction to my desertion.

Bella came back into her room with a tear-streaked face and glassy eyes, and collapsed onto her bed. She picked the picture of me back up and ran her finger down it in a manner so reminiscent of how I stroked her photo that my eyes stung with phantom tears.

I shouldn't have taken it from her. Her photograph was such a comfort to me—I should never have taken mine from her. I had left her with nothing. I had thought it would be better, that it would help her forget me more easily, but it had only hurt her—hurt her to the point that she doubted her sanity!

I didn't know what the right thing to do was anymore. It seemed like no matter what my motivation, my every decision ended in her unhappiness. Was talking to her on Monday the best thing for her? Should I wait longer, give her more time to process what I had done to her?

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I sighed wearily. At least somebody was predictable.

"Hel—"

"Edward Anthony Masen Cullen, you are giving me whiplash! So help me, if you don't stick to your decision and just _stay there_ and talk to Bella on Monday, I will harass you every day for the rest of your existence!"

"That's different from now, how?" I muttered.

She growled menacingly. "You haven't seen anything yet, Edward. I am not even joking. Now will you _please_ just stick to it?"

"I… is this the right thing to do, Alice?" I asked desperately. "I've hurt her so much; I don't want to make it any worse. What have you been seeing? Tell me what the right thing to do is, and I'll do it."

Her voice gentled. "This _is_ the right thing. You have to talk to her, Edward. You have to go back to her. She needs you just as much as you need her. I promise."

"But you sent me a smiley face when I decided to loosen the floorboard, and then she hurt herself and cried and vomited and… I'm making everything worse!"

"It's like lancing a boil or something—she needs to get all this stuff out. Everything works out in the end—as long as you actually _talk_ to her. Okay?"

I sighed in defeat. "All right, I'll try to stop changing my mind. Everything I decide is wrong, anyway." I paused and admitted, "Alice, I'm sorry. You tried to tell me that Bella wouldn't simply get over me the way I thought and I didn't listen. I thought you were just trying to push me towards the end that you wanted, not that you really… I should have known better, and I'm sorry."

"Of course I forgive you, Edward, but _please_, I'm begging you, just stay with your plan to talk to her on Monday. Not only is it what you _should_ do, but your constant rethinking is driving me insane. Jasper wants to…" Her voice trailed off in the way it did when she had a vision. "Oh! Make sure you can see in Bella's room after she and Charlie have dinner."

"What? Why?"

"You'll see," she sang. "Bye, Edward!" She hung up before I could respond, and I slid my phone back in my pocket, rolling my eyes.

…

I watched Bella and her father rearranging her furniture, placing her bed closer to the window, where her dresser had been. The stalkerish side of me noted that it would make it easier to see her from the trees while she was in bed, but the rational side thought the sun would be in her face when she woke in the morning, meaning that she would need to sleep with her new, more opaque, curtains closed.

My stalker side didn't like that very much.

The branch creaked under my feet and I shifted my position in the tree, looking up as Bella tossed something small into her closet. She was pretending to be nonchalant, but failing so miserably that I couldn't imagine how her father didn't notice.

He didn't though, even as she practically shoved him out of her door. His mind was as opaque as her curtains, but I could hear enough to know that he was happy rather than suspicious. He hoped that fixing up her bedroom meant that she was getting over me.

The instant his feet hit the bottom of the stairs, Bella closed her door and locked—_locked_ it?—and dashed to her closet to retrieve whatever she'd thrown in there. She sat on her bed to look at it, and finally I could see what it was.

The bracelet.

The box was so dark in color that I'd wondered if it had gotten overlooked and was still under the floor. After leaving her, I had repeatedly second-guessed my decision to put it with her other things. At the time, it had seemed the obvious thing to do. The bracelet was hers; I would never give it to anyone else and I didn't want to ever look at it again if it wasn't in her possession. But after I left, I had wondered how finding it would make her feel. She had never liked me to give her gifts while we were together, why would she not take even more offense to one found after I was gone? She might even find it insulting in some way, as though I was trying to pay her for her silence or something else reprehensible. On the other hand, the note I had written was still in the box, and finding my words of love certainly would not do anything to help her move on with her life.

So, yes, long ago I had decided that leaving it had been a very bad idea. When I loosened the floorboard earlier I had even considered taking it with me, but knew it would be more honest to leave it. I never wanted to lie to her again, even by omission. Whatever reaction she had, I would just take it like a man.

Having that attitude didn't stop me from cringing as she opened the box.

The expression on her face when she saw the bracelet and read my note, a mixture of love and grief and wonder, took my breath away. She wept and smiled, and when she slid the bracelet over her fingers to study it in the last of the day's sunlight prisms of light danced on her skin, just as they did when I was with her in the meadow on a sunny day.

She liked it. Better yet, she _accepted_ it.

It was such a relief. I had been extremely nervous, even while carrying it around with me on her birthday, that she wouldn't want it. She had never wanted me to spend any money on her or take her anywhere nice—although after hearing her conversation with Angela I now realized there was more to the latter than an aversion to having money spent on her. I had never wanted to embarrass her by commenting on or drawing any attention to the vulgar ways some women behaved, much less the far more vulgar things they thought, but if she wanted me to tell the floozies to back off, I would be delighted to do so. I would be even more delighted to inform all and sundry that I was with Bella, would always be with Bella, and would never be with anyone else.

I watched the light refracting from the diamonds move across her beautiful face. Even if vampires didn't mate for life, how could I ever want anyone else?

Bella drifted slowly into sleep with a small smile touching her lips, my note pressed to her heart, and the bracelet still around her hand. Her fingers were curled up over it, protecting it even as she slept.

And for a moment I felt perfectly happy.

…

The moon had risen when I heard the wolf's mind approaching, and I dropped silently to the ground before he arrived. The last thing I needed was for him to see me staring into Bella's window as she slept. Not that I was ashamed of doing it, but I couldn't imagine he would be happy about it if he saw it.

His mind and his demeanor were very subdued. He walked up to stand next to me, jerked his chin towards me without making eye contact, and said, "Cullen."

His tone was resentful, but I was very surprised that he'd greeted me by name, as opposed to leech or bloodsucker. "Black," I responded levelly.

We'd stood silently next to each other for over an hour when I heard another mind approaching. My head snapped up, and I looked to the west. "Someone's coming."

Jacob turned to look the same direction I was, his eyes narrowed.

The mind was good-natured, but with an edge of defiance to it. _I just want to meet him. I understand why Sam said no, but with what Jake thinks might happen… Bella wouldn't like him if he was a bad guy..._

The man—boy, really, for despite his size there was no denying the youthfulness of his face—bounded into the clearing and Jacob exploded. "Seth! What the hell are you doing here?"

The boy replied cheerfully, undismayed by his reception, "Hey Jake! Just wanted to meet Edward here." He turned to me and stuck his hand out. "Seth Clearwater. Nice to meet you."

I shook his hand, shocked by his friendliness. "Edward Cullen."

He rubbed his hand on his leg and laughed. "Man, they weren't kidding when they called you guys Cold Ones. You're freezing!"

I opened my mouth to remark on his own unusual temperature, liking his ingenuousness, but Jake interrupted. "Seth, you are in such deep shit. You know Sam told you no!"

"Come on, Jake, the guy's practically my brother-in-law! Why shouldn't I get to meet him?"

"He is not! And even if he was, what are you picturing? Happy little family gatherings around the table, wolves and humans and leeches? Are you nuts?!"

"Pardon me," I interrupted politely, "but we have a family connection?"

Seth turned to me, a smile back on his face. "I guess you wouldn't know, since you haven't talked to Bella yet, but we think Charlie wants to date my mom."

"That's… surprising," I replied. From what I had gleaned through the town minds, Chief Swan had barely even looked at a woman in the years since his wife left him.

"I know," he agreed. "He's been alone forever, man, like my whole life. Emily thinks maybe he was waiting for Bella's mom to come back, but then she got remarried so he gave up and started looking around. Leah's mad, like usual; she doesn't want mom to ever date anyone, but why should mom be alone for the rest of her life? She's not that old, you know? Dad was older than her, but he was kinda young, too. I mean, considering." His voice trailed off and he looked strangely guilty.

Jake interjected gruffly, "It wasn't your fault, kid."

"Sure, sure. Leah says—"

"It wasn't her fault either! Neither of you could help it; it just happened."

Images flickered through both their minds: a young Quileute woman, angry and arguing with her parents, exploding suddenly into wolf form. The father's hands scrabbling at his chest as he fell, grey-faced and gasping, to the floor, and the mother's shriek as she dropped to her knees beside him. The agonized sound the wolf made as she turned and ran from the house. Seth's terror as he also transformed, realized he couldn't change back, and after a moment of indecision fled after his sister, leaving his mother alone with his dying father.

"Yeah, I suppose. Anyway," he redirected his comments back to me, "Charlie and my dad were good friends, so he's always been around. It's kind of nice that he still is. Besides, there's plenty of worse guys she could spend time with."

"Chief Swan's a good man," I agreed.

Jake rolled his eyes at our pleasantries and told Seth, "It's not like it's a done deal, you know. Either Charlie and your mom or Bells and Cullen here." Again, I felt a frisson of shock that he was calling me by name.

"Well, I hope it works out with Charlie—I like him. And that's not what you were thinking last night about Bella and Edward," he replied mulishly. He turned to me and said confidingly, "They were all so shocked that you could love her. It's stupid—obviously you aren't dead or some kind of monster, 'cause if you were how would you be able to decide not to hurt people? So why wouldn't you be able to love someone?"

Jake took advantage of my stunned silence to snap, "My point, Seth, was that there have been no weddings, so he's not your brother-in-law, so you have no reason to be here. You have patrol first thing in the morning, anyway. So go home."

"You have patrol in the morning too, Jake," Seth pointed out cheerfully.

"Sam's still having you do patrols? Besides watching me, I mean?" I asked, surprised. I'd assumed spending the nights here keeping an eye on me was his duty.

Seth answered, "No, Sam hasn't told anyone to watch you. He says it's clear from your conversation with Jake that you aren't going to do anything to break the treaty—yet, anyway—and it's better to patrol and keep an eye out for real threats, so if Jake wants to waste time standing out here all night watching you he can pull his patrols during the day."

"Any other private conversations you'd like to share?" Jake asked him caustically.

"Edward," Bella said clearly, interrupting whatever Seth had been about to say.

Seth turned and looked towards the house. "Is she calling you? I thought she didn't know you were here."

"She doesn't," I replied. "She talks in her sleep."

Seth looked like someone had given him the best gift ever. I began to see a small resemblance between him and Emmett. "Really? That's awesome!"

"No, don't want a turtle. The neck's weird."

Seth snorted into laughter and even Jacob looked amused.

"Don't care if you push the head in it's weird." She was silent for a few seconds, then sighed and said, "Want fish tacos. No. No… not salsa. That's gross."

Seth was nearly crying, he was laughing so hard. "Holy crap," he gasped, "this is epic."

Jacob snorted and shoved his shoulder playfully, and the boy actually fell over onto the ground. I rolled my eyes and smirked.

"Boys are silly," she said clearly, and I laughed out loud.

"Maybe she woke up," Jacob muttered sarcastically, and pushed at Seth with his foot. Seth just laughed harder, holding his stomach, making both Jacob and me grin. Our eyes met, and we looked away from each other.

She was silent for a while, then sighed and said quietly, "Love my bracelet. Thank you, Edward."

Seth sat up, alternating between gasping breaths and chuckles. "What was that? I didn't catch that one."

Jacob shrugged; he hadn't heard it either. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and I realized there was a huge, moony smile on my face.

"No idea," I lied, still smiling.

…

Bella was mostly silent the rest of the night, much to Seth's dismay. He stayed with us, chattering away about various things, keeping the mood blessedly lighthearted. He was a little overly enthusiastic, but his youth was his excuse, and he had such a kind mind that it was a pleasure to be around him. Jacob got exasperated with him from time to time, but Seth wasn't fazed by it, and I could see in both their minds that the younger nearly idolized the elder. From what I could tell, Jacob never took advantage of Seth's hero worship, and I had to respect him for that.

She became restless again after the sun rose, tossing and mumbling in her bed, and Seth's tired mind perked up in hope that she'd say something interesting.

"Where? Where are you? Where… no… no… you _are_ real…"

I rubbed my chest, wishing it had never occurred to me to tell her it would be like I never existed.

"No… you are, you… no… no!" Then her voice changed, the panic replaced with such relief it was tangible. "_Edward_."

I closed my eyes and let her relief at finding me in her dream flow over me, knowing that it was the same profound, knee-weakening relief I would feel when I was finally with her again.

Bella mumbled incomprehensibly for a while, then said clearly, "Edward, I love you."

I flinched at the sudden burst of anguish from Jacob's mind, but tried to pretend I didn't hear him.

When she spoke again her voice was louder, more desperate. "No… don't go. Don't… please, Edward. Please… don't leave me."

_I can't do this_, Jacob thought frantically. "I can't… I have to go. Seth, I'll see you later." He jogged into the woods, transforming into a wolf once he was out of sight, and ran towards La Push.

Bella woke with a whimper. I could see myself through Seth's mind, rubbing my chest, my eyes squeezed shut. For a long minute he said nothing, just looked back and forth between me and the woods where Jacob had fled. Finally, he exclaimed, "Man, this sucks!"

I laughed weakly and met his eyes. "Yes, it does."

He looked unhappy, his mind a maelstrom of confused thoughts and images, Bella and Jacob and me.

"It's my fault," I told him quietly. "Bella's unhappiness, Jacob's… I thought I would only be hurting myself."

"I'm gonna be honest, man, if you love her I don't get why you left in the first place. The other day, Jake was remembering you saying something about wanting her to have a normal life?" A memory flashed through his mind of me hissing at Jacob that first night. The pack mind really was fascinating. Everyone's memories became your own.

I sighed, still rubbing my chest. "I wanted her to be safe, primarily. My presence in her life exposed her to a tremendous amount of danger." I remembered how bloody and broken she had been when I tore James away from her, the glimpse I'd had of her terrified face through Jasper's eyes as he lunged at her. "But yes, I wanted her to have a normal, human life. To be able to grow older, to find a job doing whatever she'd like, to be free to do as she pleases. Not to have to hide, or lie, or… People think they would like immortality, and perhaps if we didn't have to conceal what we are I would enjoy it, but as it is, it's an extremely stagnant life. Never changing, never moving forward. I want more than that for her."

"Huh. I never thought of it that way." His eyes widened as something occurred to him, but I waited for him to voice it. "All the guys have been freaking out about you changing her, but you don't even want to, do you?"

"No. She does. She's wanted it from the beginning. But no."

"But she'll _die_. And you won't." His mind conjured a vision of me wandering alone with my hair standing on end, rubbing my chest and looking tortured. From what I'd seen of myself through other people's eyes the past nine months, he wasn't far off.

"I'll find a way," I muttered.

His expression was a mixture of horror and pity. "Man, that's messed up."

I shrugged indifferently. I wasn't going to live in a world in which she didn't exist. Period.

…

That... that... _woman_ thought Bella was on drugs!

I was standing in the kitchen tree— yes, I have mentally designated a tree for watching the kitchen and a tree for watching the bedroom. I'm heading into my fourth day of this interminable week and have embraced my stalkerish tendencies— watching Chief Swan eye Bella beadily as he told her about a call he'd received from Mrs. Newton. I managed to read from his mind what she had accused Bella of doing mere seconds before he said it, and in my outrage nearly fell from the tree. Again.

All unknowing, I seem to be trying to disprove the notion that vampires have excellent reflexes and motor skills, and therefore do _not_ inadvertently fall from trees.

At least now I knew why Alice had called me this morning. I had been hidden in the trees behind Newton's, frowning at Bella who was inexplicably sitting in her truck instead of going inside to work, when my phone vibrated in my pocket. Alice had insisted that I leave, saying that she didn't know why, perhaps it would be something that someone thought, but I was going to have a "hissy fit" and I couldn't stay there. She had then proceeded, in her inimitable way, to give me a list of what I should do instead. I had argued— futilely, of course— but finally left to do as she told me.

She said to hunt, and so I hunted. She said to clear our driveway to make it wide enough for Bella's truck to pass through, and so, even though I thought she was crazy, I cleared it. She said, "Will you _please_ just clean the house already, Edward?" and I... well, no, I didn't clean the house. That was a question, not an instruction, right? So I didn't clean the house, but I did go inside for the first time since I'd been back, took a shower and changed clothes, and passed some time playing the piano.

I had missed playing. I'd begun with Esme's favorite, then played the song I'd written for Alice, the second movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Schumann's Concerto in A minor, and parts of Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto. I'd rounded at all off with the fast hornpipe I'd written for Emmett, and grinned as I remembered how Rosalie loathed it.

Though my fingers had itched to do it, I didn't play Bella's lullaby. The next time I played it would be for her.

When I was finished, I'd tossed the dust cover from one of the couches on top of the cover from the piano, and lounged on the couch, killing the time until I needed to be back at Bella's house by imagining all the things I would say to her when we were finally together again.

And so here I was, preparing to leave the kitchen tree for the bedroom tree and begin my fourth night's vigil in the woods outside her house. After tonight, there would only be three nights left, and thank God for that. This week felt like it would never end.

…

This night began as the last. I dropped from the tree when I heard Jacob approaching, and when he arrived he greeted me by name, then stood silently beside me. He was even more subdued than last night, with an air of defeat about him.

I hoped Seth was planning on coming, or it would be a long, depressing night.

Bella appeared in her window, pulling a chair behind her to sit on, and stared out into the forest at the exact spot where Jacob and I were standing. We both took a cautionary step backwards, even though we knew there was no way she could see us. Her face was sad and anxious, and the longer she sat there staring at us, the harder it was for me to remain in place. I rubbed the growing pain in my chest with one hand, and sank the fingers of my other hand deep into the tree next to me.

Finally Jacob broke the silence, asking in a voice more curious than hostile, "What are you doing?"

"It's going to sound crazy, but it feels like she's calling me," I replied, my voice strained.

"Calling you," he repeated flatly.

"Yes," I gasped, out of air. My chest hurt so badly that my lungs weren't working. I closed my eyes and ground my teeth, fighting the urge to dash across the yard and up through her window. Finally, the feeling eased and I looked up to see that Bella's room was dark and she was gone from the window. I extricated my hand from the tree and inspected the damage I had done, wondering if it would look more or less unnatural if I snapped the tree off above where the damage was done.

"Just break it off," Jacob advised dryly. "That hole you put in it will never look normal."

I gave him a startled look, then did as he suggested, ripping off the thirty or so feet of trunk above where I'd mutilated it and laying it down to make it look as though it had snapped off and fallen. I cast a critical eye over the jagged stump. "Think it looks okay?"

"Yeah, it'll do." He was quiet for a minute, then asked, "If she was calling you, why didn't you go to her?"

I looked at him like he was insane. "Because I gave my word that I wouldn't approach her until Monday night."

He sighed in annoyance. "You know, it was a lot easier to hate you when I thought you were an asshole."

"Uh, sorry?" How was I supposed to respond to that?

He changed subjects abruptly. "That thing you do with your chest. What's that all about?"

I hadn't even realized I was rubbing it again. "It's painful being apart from her. Like my chest is empty, and burning."

His mind was a jumble of things: Seth's conversation with me early this morning along with Seth's thoughts on it, the conversations he'd had with me, the pain he'd seen me in the past few days, the pain he'd seen Bella in.

I flinched at the last and he cursed under his breath, then said accusatorily, "You really do love her, don't you?"

"Yes."

"I heard your conversation with Seth—you know about the pack mind thing, right?"

I nodded.

"Yeah, I figured you would have read that from one of our minds," he said a little belligerently. "Anyway, I kind of get why you left, but how do I know you won't do it to her again? Because I have to tell you, there's part of me that thinks the best thing to do is destroy you before she even knows you're here."

He must have been seriously considering it, because my phone immediately vibrated. "Excuse me for a second. Hello, Alice."

"Are you in danger?" she demanded at vampire speed. "Because I'm seeing a possible future where Bella doesn't talk to you on Monday."

"I'm not sure. Jacob, my psychic sister Alice would like to know if I'm in danger."

"If she's psychic, shouldn't she know?"

"Well, she knew enough to call me," I pointed out coolly. "I understand your reasoning behind preferring to kill me before Bella is aware of my presence as opposed to after, but can you please refrain from contemplating it until _after_ I answer your questions?"

"I'll do my best," he replied sarcastically.

"Very well. What was that, Alice? Okay, I'll tell him. Bye." I returned my phone to my pocket. "Carlisle would like me to remind you that any assault upon me would break the treaty, and to inform you that my family will not hesitate to retaliate. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he muttered, feeling a little ashamed about what he'd almost started. _Sam's going to kill me_, he thought.

Time to change the subject. "Okay, so where were we? Do you know about vampire mate bonds?"

"I know that vampires mate." Scattered bits of a story about a cold woman slaughtering half a village in vengeance for the death of her mate ran through his mind.

"Yes, well, Bella's my mate, so when I left I knew it would be painful for me, but I never imagined that it would hurt her the same way. I thought because she was human that she wouldn't feel the bond from her side, that she would be able to get over me, to forget me. I know that's not the case now, and you can rest assured I will never _knowingly_ hurt her like that. The only way I will leave her again is if she tells me to go."

He nodded, his mind turning the new information around, sorting it in with what he already knew, or thought he knew. He stopped at something he'd gleaned from Seth's mind. "So you really don't want to change her?"

"No. I've never wanted to do that to her."

"But she _wants_ to be changed?" he asked, repulsed.

"Yes. Well, she did."

"You know that would break the treaty."

"Yes, that is a consideration," I agreed, though really, while it did have to be considered it was the least of my concerns.

Bella began muttering in her sleep, and we both turned to look towards her window.

"Will Seth be coming tonight?" I hoped so. We needed the mood lightened.

Jacob snorted. "No, he's in trouble with his mom. She was _not_ happy that he was out here all night with us."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. He has such a kind mind and is so cheerful, I was hoping to spend more time with him."

"Cullen, you are not at all what a vampire is supposed to be like," he replied sardonically.

"Why, what am I supposed to be like?" I responded, amused.

"You know, all 'I vant to suck your blooooooooooood' and cold-hearted and vicious, and instead you're polite and you like kindness and rainbows and Glenda the Good Witch and probably save puppies from puppy mills or something."

I laughed outright. "'Rainbows and Glenda the Good Witch'?"

"Yeah, it's disgusting. You're falling down on the job, man."

"If it makes you feel any better, I don't like Glenda the Good Witch. She's annoyingly vapid and holds back the truly important information until the end."

He snorted again. "Sure, sure, that makes everything better."

…

Jacob left not long after the sun rose, so he could check on his father before he went out on patrol. Apparently Sam had divided the pack into three groups, each group patrolling in eight hour shifts. Jacob, Seth, and Seth's sister Leah had the first shift, starting at eight, then he would sleep for four or five hours after that before joining me here.

Not that he told me any of that. While we were on slightly better terms, we still had spent most of the night in silence, and he certainly wasn't likely to start confiding in me anytime soon. No, I got it all from his mind, of course.

Chief Swan left for work about an hour later, then a little while after that Bella became restless and began talking in her sleep, saying my name, then Alice's, and Carlisle and Esme's. She grew more and more agitated, tossing and whimpering, finally crying, "No!" and waking with a start.

Five seconds later my phone vibrated in my pocket. "Hello, Alice," I sighed. "What's on my list of things to do today?"

"Edward, hurry! You have to go!"

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Sorry for the delay in posting, Edward wanted to wallow in a pool of angst and took a while to go where I wanted to lead him. The next chapter's nearly finished, so it'll be up soon. Leave me a review, and let me know where you think Alice is sending Edward. :)**


	7. No Man Like He Doth Grieve My Heart

_._

_God pardon him! I do, with all my heart,_

_And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart._

_-Juliet_

…

Bella

Friday, 16 June 2006

**…**

When I woke up that morning I had had enough. I was tired of crying, tired of being ashamed of how I was acting, tired of missing Edward, tired of hurting Charlie and Jacob, tired of these stupid, lying dreams.

Cleaning the house had waited this long; it wouldn't matter if it waited another couple of hours. I was going to the Cullen's house.

Edward's house.

No one was there waiting for me, they way they were in my dreams, and I was going to prove it. The house would be empty and I would move on with my life as best I could.

I knew I wouldn't ever be able to have the normal life Edward wanted me to have. He'd talked about it once, at the beginning of last summer. He'd been upset with himself about something, and had burst out with this list of things I would never be able to have with him: safety, a marriage that could always be acknowledged in public, children, a life free of lies. All things that, in his opinion, I needed for a happy life.

It had seemed ridiculous to me at the time, that he thought I couldn't be happy without those things, that he thought being with him wasn't _worth_ all of those things. Did he really think that my life would suddenly become danger-free just because he wasn't in it? That I wanted to look up into anyone else's face as I said my vows? Or have children that weren't his?

And as far as a life free from lies… There would be part of me that would grieve for him forever, and for the sake of everyone who loved me I would have to live my life pretending that wasn't true. What was that, if not lying? Not that I expected to be perpetually unhappy—I'd eventually figure out a way to be content, but it wouldn't be the contentment I'd once had. I'd never have that hopefulness, that anticipation for the future that I had while I was living with my mother.

I knew Jake hoped that after I'd had the chance to process everything, after I figured out how to survive on my own, that I would come back to him. But how could I do that to him? I'd never be able to love him wholeheartedly. I'd never be able to look at him without remembering that he was the one who held me together when Edward made me fall apart. I'd never be able to forget Edward enough to be capable of loving Jacob as he should be loved. No, the kindest, most loving thing I could do for Jake was to let him go.

But even if I couldn't move on romantically, I had to move on in every other way. I couldn't just keep waiting here for Edward to come back. Charlie had said that to me once, that it would be better for me to go to Florida than to stay here waiting for him. I'd been angry, but he was right. I've been waiting and I need to stop, because even though Edward loves me he isn't coming back.

My breath caught in my throat and I made a sound somewhere between and gasp and a whimper as I finally admitted what I've always known.

Edward isn't ever coming back.

My arms wrapped around myself as I felt the edges of the hole twist and tear and burn. I forced myself to stand up and breathe, willing the pain away. So now I know he loves me, so what? What good did knowing it do? Even if I knew where he was, I couldn't make him come back. I couldn't force him to stay with me.

I would go to his house. It would be overgrown and empty. I would turn the page.

There was a small part of me shrieking in protest at the mere thought of a page without Edward on it, but I told that part of me to shut up, and threw on some clothes. I forced down a granola bar, drank some milk straight from the carton, and slammed the door behind me as I stormed out to my truck. I drove down the 101 as fast as my truck would go, which admittedly wasn't very fast, but I just wanted to get this over with.

The Cullen's driveway was so overgrown that I almost drove past it. I slammed on my brakes and turned too quickly into the small gap, wincing as branches scraped the side of the truck. The lane was even more jungle-like than it had been in January, although I could see places where branches had been broken off, making it wide enough for my truck to easily pass through. I started to wonder who else had been driving back here and if I should have thought more carefully about going alone to a long vacant house. A long vacant house that was isolated in the middle of the forest. I nervously bit my lip, hoping there weren't squatters or criminals back there since there wasn't enough room for me to turn around.

I finally pulled into the clearing, and beneath my relief that there weren't any evil humans lurking about was grief, for there weren't any vampires either. It was nothing like my dream. The ferns were still there and the house looked empty and lifeless. I numbly began rolling down my window for some fresh air. On the first crank, I told myself I imagined the music. On the third I acknowledged that I could truly hear it.

Someone was playing Esme's song on the piano.

I sat there, frozen mid-crank. When black spots pushed in on the edges of my vision I realized I wasn't breathing.

I was insane. I had to be. Because if there were criminals at this house they wouldn't know Esme's song and there couldn't be anyone else here. I took another gasping breath. Except criminals. Or maybe one of the other Cullens learned to play the piano and for some reason came back here to play this piano. Because Edward wasn't here. He couldn't be here. Why would he be here and not come to see me?

The song ended and for a long moment there was silence. I bolted out of my truck, leaving the door hanging open behind me, and ran for the front door. I didn't know what was happening, but I wasn't going to let it be as it was in my dream. I wasn't going to be too afraid to approach the house and find out if someone was truly there. Just as I reached for the doorknob, the music started again.

This time it was my lullaby.

I froze in place and stared at the door. What if going in made the music stop? What if it was all in my imagination? Worse, what if I was actually still asleep and when I went in I woke up? I stood in front of the door for a full minute before I could bring myself to touch the knob. It turned easily under my hand and I took a hesitant step inside, my eyes immediately going to the platform to the right of the entryway.

The music stopped abruptly as I entered, and I saw him.

Edward sat perfectly still behind the piano, his golden eyes fixed on me. We stared at each other, barely breathing. I was afraid to move, afraid that it would break the spell and he would vanish. I would die if he vanished. I would gladly stand here for the rest of my life if it meant that I could just _see_ him.

He stood up and began walking towards me slowly, like he was afraid to startle me, and I tried to remember how to breathe. He traced the side of my face with his cold fingertips, then gently pulled me into his arms and let out a long, shuddering sigh. He was tall and cold and so beautiful, so inhumanly beautiful. I inhaled deeply, breathing in his dizzying scent, the scent that was more than just vampire, the scent that was pure Edward.

My head spun. He was really here. I never expected that he would really be here.

I started to whisper his name, but choked on a sob and no matter how I tried, I couldn't make myself stop crying. He scooped me into his arms and kicked the door closed in the same fluid movement, and carried me to the couch.

We sat there for a long time, me on his lap, our arms wrapped tightly around each other, and his face buried in my hair. I could feel him breathing in my scent. He didn't speak—maybe he was waiting for me to calm down. Or maybe…

"Are you real?" I asked in a shaky voice.

"What?" He sounded surprised. I wasn't sure if that made him more or less likely to be a delusion.

"Are you real?" I repeated. "Or am I dreaming, or…or maybe my mind has finally snapped? If it did, can I keep you with me forever?" I thought for a second, and said in the manner of someone conferring a favor, "If I'm crazy, I suppose you don't _have_ to be real."

I felt more than heard him laugh. "Yes, I am real, and yes, you can keep me forever. I don't ever want to leave your side again. I can't bear it."

I wiped my face with my hand, saying grumpily, "Then why did you leave in the first place? I mean, I think I know why, but really, Edward. You're an idiot."

He laughed but it sounded like he wanted to cry. He ran his thumbs gently under my eyes, catching any stray tears, and kissed my forehead. "I know. I'm so sorry. Bella, I… you know what, I have no excuses. I thought it was the best thing to do, the best way to keep you safe, but I never thought it would hurt you so much. I'm truly very sorry."

I pressed a kiss to his neck and nestled my head back under his chin. "I forgive you—I already forgave you, once I realized what was going on. I'm just can't believe…I'm so happy you're here." My voice broke and I took a deep breath, calmed by his scent. "Please, Edward. Promise you won't do it again?"

"I promise," he vowed seriously. "I should have listened to Alice. She tried to tell me that I was doing the wrong thing."

"Never bet against Alice," I murmured almost sleepily. My chest was whole again, and it was so relaxing not to have to constantly fight for air.

Edward hummed in agreement and nudged my face up with his chin, then slowly kissed his way from my forehead to the corner of my mouth. "Breathe, Bella," he whispered.

I barely had time to comply before his mouth was on mine, then there was no more thought for anything except our shared breath and his hands on me and my hands in his hair. I wanted to kiss him forever.

All too soon, though, he pulled back. I fisted my hands in his shirt, as though that would keep him from moving too far away, and admired the mess I'd made of his hair. I told him dreamily, "You know how people ask what you're going to do when you grow up, or what you're going to study in college? I've decided what I want to do with my life."

"Really," he replied lazily, his eyes amused. "What's that?"

"It's a very serious course of study," I slowly leaned closer and watched his eyes darken. "But _so_ fascinating. I may have to get a doctorate in it."

His face was impassive, but there was the slightest quiver in his voice. "In what, exactly?"

"This," I whispered against his lips, and kissed him.

He let me have my way for a few more minutes, until we were both breathing heavily, then laughed a little. "I don't think there's a school that offers that course of study."

"That's too bad. I'd definitely be able to write a thesis on that." I nudged the collar of his shirt open wider and kissed the cleft in his collarbone, smiling when his breath hitched. "Maybe I could get private lessons?"

"I don't think you need lessons," he muttered. "Behave, please? Before you kill me?"

I snuggled into his shoulder and sighed longsufferingly. "If I must." I felt him smile against my head, making me smile in reaction. "So what has your family been up to? Where are you all living now?"

"Everyone's up in New York now, in Ithaca. Carlisle's teaching part-time as well as working at the hospital, and Esme is just wrapping up a house restoration outside of the city. Jasper's going to Cornell—studying philosophy this time. Rosalie and Emmett went to Europe for a few months but they're back now. I'm not sure if they've decided yet what they want to do next. And Alice just started an online business selling upscale vintage clothing."

I laughed. "That sounds like the perfect business for her. What have you been doing? Going to Cornell also?"

"Uh, no. I've been travelling. Mostly."

He sounded so uncomfortable that I turned my head to look at his face. "You haven't been living with your family?"

"No. I visit sometimes, or call them." He began running his fingers gently through my hair, his eyes distant.

"But… why?"

"It was too difficult being around them. Even before I met you, I used to have trouble living with them sometimes—the three perfectly matched couples and me, the cantankerous old bachelor—but after I left you it was a thousand times worse. Everything reminded me of you and I missed you so horribly; it sounds awful to say, but I couldn't bear being around their happiness. Not that they've been idyllically happy since everyone's been a bit upset with me for the way I've been acting. But I swear, Bella, I've been doing the best I could. I've been trying to see them more often and pretend to be coping better, but I can never stay very long or else I do something stupid."

"Like what?"

"Oh, say something to irritate Rosalie, get upset trying to play the piano, throw a chair through a window, not want to play ba—"

"Hold up—you threw a chair through a window?"

He looked sheepish. "Uh, yes?"

"Why?" I asked, astonished.

"Carlisle was joking about my heart—my chest hurt all the time, being away from you, and I would rub it—and I tried to laugh because he wanted me to, and really, it should have been funny, the idea of a vampire having angina. But I could hear myself, my laugh was all wrong and I could see on Carlisle's face that he wished he hadn't said it, and I was so tired of not being able to even _pretend_ I was okay, tired of making my family pussyfoot around me all the time, tired of hurting and missing you and being even more of a freak than usual and…" He shrugged slightly. "That was the last time I was home, about a month ago."

While he was talking, a hundred things had crossed my mind to say, but I discarded them all. Instead, I pressed a kiss to his chest over his heart and settled my head back on his shoulder. After a minute I offered, "My chest hurt, too. I would wrap my arms around myself because I felt like I was ripped open and I had to hold myself together. It was hard to breathe."

"I'm so sorry," he whispered.

"I know, Edward, but I'm not telling you to make you sorry. I'm just saying I understand. I understand the pain and trying to pretend to be normal and being tired of failing at everything and knowing that you're making everyone around you unhappy." I thought of Jake and tears stung my eyes. "Believe me, I understand why you threw the chair."

His arms tightened around me and he kissed my head. "I love you, my Bella."

"I love you, too." After a few minutes he began combing his fingers through my hair again, and I asked lightly, "So where did you go on your travels? Anywhere interesting?"

"England first, though why I thought going there would distract me from thoughts of you, I have no idea. Everywhere I went there were references to your favorite authors and books, and I saw so many things I wanted to show you or tell you about… It wasn't that I wanted to forget you, even if such a thing were possible I wouldn't have wanted it, it just—"

"It just hurt too much to remember. I know. It's a difficult balance."

"It's an impossible balance. The slightest thing can tip the pain from almost bearable to completely excruciating."

I was nodding against his shoulder. "Yes," I agreed. "Like you're going to drown in it. You want to scream, but there's no point because no amount of screaming will ease the pain."

"Yes." He sounded strangely relieved that I understood.

I tugged his head down and kissed him, just a gentle peck. "So where to then?"

He sighed. "I went home for a few days to see everyone. I felt like I was barely holding on to my sanity at that point, and wasn't able to pretend normalcy very well. I irritated Rosalie to the point that she dragged Emmett off to Europe for a few months. They got married again in Paris and took an extended honeymoon. After that, I figured I should stay away for a while until I had better control over myself. I didn't want to drive Alice and Jasper off and deprive Esme of all her 'children' at once."

I stared at the side of his expressionless face, then asked hotly, "Are you serious? You were wandering around with a broken heart and Rosalie decided that was the perfect time to get remarried in Paris?"

He shrugged. "She didn't make me attend the wedding."

"Are you saying that or did she say that?" Rosalie scared the crap out of me, but right now I wanted to smack her.

"Both. Under the circumstances I was very glad not to have to attend, but when she called Esme to tell her about the wedding she told her that. Among other things."

I scowled at him. "I probably don't want to know what other things she said, do I?"

He laughed aloud. "No, probably not."

"Humph. So then what?"

"I wandered around, spent some time in Texas, then headed south. I ended up in Rio de Janeiro. I was there the longest, about two months."

"Those are some awfully sunny places, aren't they?"

"Yes, well, there are vampires in the sunny places of the world. They just don't go out during the day."

"So were you visiting friends, or…"

"No, I was trying my hand at tracking." He laughed a bit derisively. "I discovered I'm not very good at it."

"What were you tracking?"

"Victoria."

"What?" I gasped. "But you were alone!"

He scoffed. "Please, Bella, killing her would have been no trouble at all. It was finding her that was difficult. You have to understand, I didn't think she would come back here or I never would have left you unprotected, but when I came across her scent it was just like, 'Finally! Here's something I can do!' It helped a little bit to feel like I had a purpose, and you have to admit, the world is a better place without that creature in it. But by the time I got to Rio I was certain that I had lost her trail. I didn't know what to do then. I was just so tired, of everything. I climbed up into the rafters of an abandoned factory and lay there for weeks, replaying every moment we had together, every word you said to me… Eventually, I had to move on, so I hunted, found another attic to hide in, and started over. All the time, I grew weaker and weaker… no matter how good my intentions or how hard I tried, no matter what I had promised you, I knew I wouldn't be able to stay away from you forever."

While he'd been talking, something that had been niggling at the back of my brain suddenly came into focus. "How do you know these things? About Victoria coming back, and that she's dead, and one of the first things you said to me was that you didn't know how much leaving would hurt me—how did you know how much it hurt me? How did you know any of that?"

He kissed my head. "I was getting to that, actually."

I sat upright, dread twisting in my stomach. "How long have you been here?"

"Since Monday."

"Monday," I repeated in disbelief. "You've been here since… you are aware today is Friday, yes? What have you been waiting for?" The dread worsened, making me nauseous. "Or… you were here, at the house, just playing the piano… Weren't you… weren't you planning to see me at all?"

His brow furrowed. "Of course I _wanted_ to see you, but I promised Jacob that I would wait until Monday."

"You promised Jacob," I repeated slowly. The words made no sense to me in that order. They wouldn't make sense in any order.

"He said that you needed space to heal and know what you wanted—I heard some things you said, in his thoughts, about needing to do that, so I agreed. I…Bella, I'm so sorry. If I'd known how you felt… but when I was here before I thought—"

"Wait, wait," I interrupted. "This isn't your first time back?"

"No, I was here in March. The twentieth. When I left Rio my intention was only to check on you, to make certain you were safe and well and happy. That's what I told myself anyway—it was the only reason I permitted myself to use—but my resolve crumbled on the way and by the time I arrived my only thought was to beg you to take me back. But when I got to your house that night you were in your truck with Jacob and you… he…" He looked away and took a deep breath. "Anyway, I didn't stay more than a few minutes. I didn't think I'd be staying this time, but I wanted to make sure you were doing okay."

I took a moment to process that, then said slowly, "I assume you saw Jake kiss me."

I took his flinch as a yes. He still wasn't looking at me. A masochistic part of my brain wondered if he'd seen our first kiss—had that been the twentieth? It had been around that time. Jake had been riding the high of killing Victoria earlier that day, and when I'd let him kiss me he'd been so jubilant. I had been so numb, so sure I would never be truly happy again, and had decided if being with me made Jacob happy, why not let him? Of course, I'd also been terrified that if I kept holding him off I would eventually lose his friendship. What horrible reasons for letting him kiss me! I'd been so cruel and stupid.

I rubbed my head where I could feel a headache forming. "You thought I'd moved on. So, was that your plan, then? To come check up on me every few months?"

"Yes," he said simply. He turned his head to look at me, his eyes tender.

"For the rest of my life?" I asked incredulously. "As in, you were going to check on me multiple times a year, without me knowing, until I was _dead_?"

That was one of the most asinine plans I'd ever heard.

"Naturally." He sounded surprised at my reaction.

"And then what?" I asked blankly. Maybe he was the insane one.

"I would go to the Volturi, or…" His voice trailed off and he shrugged indifferently. "I don't know. Something. I wouldn't live without you." He quirked a brow as he took in my horror-struck face. "You already knew this. We talked about it on your birthday, remember?"

"You…" I shook my head, trying to gather my thoughts. My head swam under the force of so many conflicting emotions vying for dominance: anger and pity and outrage and sadness and horror and love and… I couldn't sit with him. I needed to be able to think. I couldn't think when he was touching me. I forcefully disentangled myself, ignoring the flash of hurt that crossed his face, and curled up facing him at the other end of the couch. I hugged a throw pillow against me, both as an extra barrier between us and to help hold myself together.

I took a deep breath. "Okay, back up for a second. Let's assume that I had moved on. Not that I _had_," I added darkly, thinking of how we could have been back together for almost three months already. How did he expect to know what I was really thinking if he was only going to spy on me from the trees? For a fleeting second I actually wished he _could_ read my mind. "What kind of life would that be for you, having to remember to come back and check on me all the time?"

"_You_ are my life," he said simply, a gentle smile on his face. "It wouldn't be an issue of remembering to come; I could never forget you for an instant. It would be a privilege to watch you go through your life, even if I could only observe from a distance."

Something about the way he said that sent a chill through me. "Edward, I need to know something." I was surprised, though pleased, that my voice didn't shake. "Now that you're back… and we know how horrible being apart was… now will you consider changing me?"

His face closed off, his lips compressed and his eyes hardened. Watching it happen was almost physically painful.

"Bella, do we really have to argue about this now?" His fingers twitched towards me like he wanted to touch me. Unsurprising, considering how many times he'd derailed a dispute about this by kissing me senseless.

"I'm not arguing with you," I pointed out. "I'm asking you a question. And if the answer is no, I just want to know why."

"I can't do that to you," he said flatly.

I tried to stay calm. I used to get so frustrated and upset when I tried to talk to him about this. Maybe if I was calm he would finally talk to me about it? "Before you all left Carlisle told me what you think about your soul. Is that why you don't want to?"

"Partially."

I waited for more. After a minute I prodded, "And what else?"

He was silent, his entire body tense and unmoving.

I tried to maintain a light tone. "This does affect me, you know. Can't we discuss it at all? I mean, I get that you're supernatural and there are times you might need to make decisions without my input, but do you really think this is one of them?"

His eyes flicked to mine briefly, and I could see that yes, he did think that.

I felt a burst of anger that he was refusing to even discuss it. "You know what? Fine. If you get to unilaterally decide this for me, then I get to decide something for you. If you refuse to change me, if you force me to die, then you are not allowed to kill yourself after I do."

He gave me a pained look, and said quietly, "Bella, I can't promise that."

"You _need_ to promise that. Can't you see? As I'm dying I'll know I'm killing you. You'll make me die knowing that my legacy is your death. I can't, Edward. I can't do that." I felt tears starting to slide down my face and I angrily wiped them away. "I can't be the reason you die. Please, please, don't make me."

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, but didn't say anything.

I took a shaky breath and continued, "So, either you agree to change me at some point in the reasonably near future, or you _swear_ to me that you won't kill yourself when I die."

His face was completely blank, frozen emotionless stone, but his eyes were tortured. He whispered, "And if I don't agree to either?"

I instinctively curled my torso around the pillow as the hole threatened to fissure and burn its way back open. "I… I don't know. I don't… how can we do this to each other, Edward? This issue is never going to go away and if we can't even talk about it... All we're going to do is hurt each other."

He turned his head away from me, his face expressionless.

Long minutes dragged by while he sat there like a statue and I fidgeted. I wanted to grab him and shake him, to demand that he talk to me, and I would have if I'd thought it would do any good. Finally I couldn't take it any longer.

He didn't even look at me as I got to my feet. "Listen, um, I've obviously given you a lot to think about, so I'm going to go home. I need to clean the house and you…you just think about it, okay? And then please talk to me?"

I started to walk past him, but couldn't resist touching him. I leaned over and pressed a kiss to his head. Tears stung my eyes as I breathed him in, and I squeezed them shut for a second. It took me by surprise when his arms flashed up and he pulled me down into his lap and kissed me.

It was like the kiss before I left for Phoenix to hide from James and the kiss from the night of my birthday, only it was more, more panicked and urgent and needy and I didn't want him to kiss me in this desperate good-bye way.

At the same time, I was so afraid of what might be going through his mind that I never wanted him to stop.

Finally, though, I had to break away to breathe. We stared at each other, breathing heavily, and the anguish in his eyes scared me. Was he really going to walk away from me again? What if he did? What if—

"You'll talk to me, right?" I blurted out. "You won't just decide to… to leave, you won't just… please come talk to me. Or call me, and I'll come here. Please. Okay?"

He gave a tiny nod, and I forced my fingers to disentangle themselves from his hair. I cradled his face in my hands and pressed my forehead against his. "I love you, Edward," I whispered.

I moved to get up and his arms tightened around me for a second, like he wasn't going to let me go. Then they fell away, laying limp at his sides.

I walked away, refusing to think about the possible repercussions of what I was doing, resisting the urge to turn around and look back at him, knowing if I did either one I would never be able to leave.

With every step I took, I expected him to come after me, to call my name, to flash around in front of me and stop me.

He didn't.

I slowly drove home with one hand, my other arm wrapped around me, the pain in my chest increasing with every passing mile until I was gasping for air.

I cleaned the house, focusing my entire mind on the task to keep from thinking. I felt a detached sort of surprise at how easy and reflexive it was to fall back into my old patterns, to wall everything off in my mind. When I was finished everything was cleaner than it had been in months—since my zombie period, probably. I didn't allow myself to think of that either, and turned my attention to making dinner.

I picked at my food, trying to ignore Charlie's concerned looks. Finally, he gave in and asked if I was okay.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, I'm fine."

"You sure, kid? You don't seem quite… right."

I forced a laugh at his description. "I'm just really tired, that's all. I might go to bed early."

He studied me with a worried frown on his face, but didn't argue when I scraped my nearly full plate into the garbage and headed upstairs. I stood in front of my door for almost a minute before I gathered the courage to peek around the edge of my doorway. Hoping that Edward was there, but terrified that he wasn't.

My room was empty.

He hadn't come. I couldn't believe he hadn't come.

All my old insecurities reared their heads. _He doesn't really love you_, they whispered. _Forever is too long to put up with you._

But he said he loves me, I argued back. He said he couldn't bear being away from me.

_Then where is he now? If he can't bear being away from you, why did he let you leave? Why will he let you die?_

I had no response to that. I still didn't understand it.

_See? He didn't mean it. You're so stupid and gullible that you'll believe anything. He's just a liar, and you—_

That's not true, I thought fiercely. Edward had lied to me in the past, but he wasn't lying now. He was conflicted and self-loathing and he might destroy us both with whatever decision he made today, but I knew he loved me. With everything that was in me, I _knew_ it.

Unfortunately, just like when I realized it the other day, the knowledge of his love made no material difference to my situation. I would never stop longing for him, never stop wanting him, never feel complete without him.

I sucked in my breath, the walls in my head tumbling down as I finally started to think about what I had done. What exactly was I trying to accomplish here?

I had meant every word I said: I wanted to be changed, I didn't want him to die because of me, he needed to treat me as an equal and discuss things with me, but why had I presented it as a ultimatum? Why had I made it seem like it was all or nothing? For nine long months I'd lived with nothing and they'd been the worst months of my life—did I really want to put _nothing_ out there as a potential option?

What was wrong with me?

I jumped off my bed, looking for my shoes. They were nowhere to be seen and I looked wildly around my room. It had been hours since I left. He could already be gone. Holy crap, where were my shoes?!

I found them in the closet and shoved my feet into them, grabbed my keys and ran downstairs.

Charlie looked up from the television, startled. "Bells, what are you doing? I thought you were going to bed."

"I have to go do something really fast I'll be back soon don't worry," I called behind me as I ran out the door.

I skidded in the mud at the edge of the drive and yanked the truck door open just as a voice called out behind me, "Bella, where are you going?"

I froze, slowly turning to look at him, my eyes wide. Then I started crying.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So who does Bella see? Do you think Bella was right or wrong to leave Edward to think the way she did? Do you think she was right to try to go back? Leave me a review and let me know! I've been shadowing the NM/Eclipse calendars- 20 March was the day Bella stopped Edward from going into the sun in Volterra and could have been the day the wolves almost killed Victoria (when she smelled Alice and took off.) 16 June (this chapter) is when the newborn battle would have happened and when Bella finally decided against Jacob- or he finally accepted it. Re: Rose and Em getting remarried, Alice told Bella in NM they had been in Europe on another honeymoon, so... I had never really thought about it before I wrote this. I forgot to say in my last A/N that I've posted pictures of the bracelet Edward gave Bella on my tumblr blog (whilewewereyetsinners dot tumblr dot com) so go check it out. It's pretty. :)  
><strong>


	8. Love is Not a Tender Thing

_._

_Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, _

_too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn._

_-Romeo_

…

Edward

Friday, 16 June 2006

…

_Look back. Look back. Please look back. Please, Bella…_

She walked away from me. And she didn't look back.

I heard her get in her truck and turn the key, the roar of the engine drowning out any other sound. She drove away and I sat uselessly on the sofa, not knowing what to do. I'd barely survived the past nine months. I knew now precisely how weak I was. I couldn't bear an eternity without her.

But how could I damn her to this life? Could I really sink that low, behave that despicably? Was I selfish enough to do it just to make myself more _comfortable_?

Drawn by her scent, I moved instinctively to the other end of the couch and pressed my face into the pillow she had been holding. My throat flared, a blazing reassurance that my Bella lived.

A short while later I heard someone approaching the house, but couldn't be bothered to look and see who it was. It was someone who knew of my gift since he or she was methodically replaying the movie _Sabrina _to block me. It wasn't Bella—the noisy mind was proof enough of that. So I stayed where I was, and waited.

The door opened and the damp breeze blew the vampire's scent in ahead of her.

Alice. I should have known.

She paused for a moment and I saw myself through her eyes, hunched over the pillow, the picture of despondency. She darted across the room and sank down on the couch next to me, stilling as she also breathed in Bella's scent.

"I know," I acknowledged miserably. "You've missed her, too."

_Yes_, she agreed silently, her mind forlorn. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to warn you what Bella was going to say, but it was a spur of the moment decision."

"Not your fault." I wished I felt as numb as my voice sounded.

Her hand settled hesitantly on my arm. She seemed cheered when I leaned into her touch. "I got here as soon as I could."

That made me sit up and think. "Wait. How _did_ you get here so quickly? Weren't you in New York?"

Her laugh rang like bells around the room. "Of course not. Did you really think we would stay so far away when you might be in danger?"

"You and Jasper?"

"No, all of us, silly."

"All of you? Even Rosalie?" She was so irritated with me I wouldn't have expected her to be willing to come all the way across the country on my behalf.

"Of course. We've been staying at the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort since Tuesday—they had a cancellation and we were able to get three individual cabins. It's been… very nice." Her head got a little squicky before, mercifully, she blocked me. She took a good look around the room, a frown growing on her face. "Honestly, Edward, didn't you do anything in here except pull the dust covers off the piano and this couch?"

How was that possibly of any importance now? I looked at her blankly and she huffed in exasperation. "Men."

She flitted around the room removing dust covers, folding and stacking them into a neat pile which she whisked away to the closet. She plumped cushions and rearranged pillows, and cast a critical eye around the room. "That'll do, I suppose, for now." She curled up on the couch next to me again, her thoughts still hidden, and sighed. "I think I might owe you an apology."

Of all the things I thought she might say, that was not one of them. "For what?"

"When you left Bella, when you made us all leave her, I knew you wouldn't be able to stay away from her forever so I didn't argue with you very much."

What? "Uh, Alice, I remember you arguing quite a bit." Not to mention some shrieking. Her voice is so high-pitched it had actually hurt my ears.

"Well, maybe," she conceded, her eyes twinkling. She was remembering the shrieking, too. "But I should have tried to reason with you more. I was just so angry at you and I thought it would do you good to be apart from her, to realize how impossible it was to live without her. But I never dreamed you would stay away so long! And then nothing was right at home, and I would get these sporadic flashes of Bella being so unhappy, and I knew you were miserable. I tried to think of ways to fix things, but I could see that everything I considered wouldn't help. I just wish I had made you listen before you left in the first place."

It was ridiculous that she was blaming herself for my folly. "You don't owe me an apology, Alice. No matter what you said, I don't think I would have listened to you. I was so certain that I was doing the right thing. And I thought—" I cut myself off before I said it.

"You thought I was making Bella's reaction out to be worse than it really would be," she said matter of factly.

"I… yes, I did think that. Not that you were lying, but that you were selectively choosing the worst of the visions to show me." I'd thought she was trying to manipulate me. It was shameful. "I should have known better and I'm very sorry."

"I know." She smiled gently, her eyes sad.

Since I was confessing: "And I know it hurt you to have to leave Bella."

She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. "It hurt me more that you were suffering, even if it was self-inflicted. But yes." Her mind was full of images of time spent with Bella, some memories and some visions that had never come to pass. "She was the only human friend I ever had, the only real friend, outside of our family. I mean, maybe I had friends when I was human, but I don't remember it." Her voice became falsely cheerful. "Though I suppose it's not likely I had friends back then, since I was the town crazy per—."

"Alice, don't." I tugged her hand away from her legs and she squeezed mine convulsively. Only Jasper and I knew how much her discoveries about her past upset her. I wished James had kept his foul mouth shut; it had been better when Alice could imagine she'd had a happy human life.

But then I wished James hadn't done a lot of things. Despicable cretin. I was glad he was destroyed.

She sighed and let it go, her mind returning to my current situation. "Will you talk to me about what happened today with Bella, because I don't understand what you're thinking. Would you really rather live apart from her than change her? Why are you so determined not to do it?"

Why did no one understand this? "Because it's selfish, Alice."

"Okay. So when Carlisle changed Esme, he was being selfish? And when Rosalie begged Carlisle to change Emmett, she was being selfish, too?"

"They were dying," I pointed out. "They didn't have their whole lives ahead of them the way that Bella does."

"That's true, but Carlisle and Rosalie could have let Esme and Emmett die and have a chance of heaven. If they really loved them, that's what you think they should have done, right?"

"I…" My voice tapered off. I wasn't sure how to answer that. I did think Rosalie had been selfish, but that was primarily because I knew how she loathed being a vampire. Changing Emmett without his knowledge or consent and bringing him into a life that she hated had seemed the height of hypocrisy to me. But Carlisle… Carlisle was never selfish. He had loved Esme, even though he hadn't yet realized it, and had felt a compulsion to save her from death. His decision to change her was understandable, perhaps even laudable if looked at in a certain light. Then again, I knew he sometimes doubted that we were eligible for heaven and therefore perhaps he _should_ have let her die…

I knew I was being illogical. But Carlisle wasn't selfish, and Rosalie and I were. Carlisle always did the right thing.

Alice broke the silence. "I'm really not trying to argue with you. I just… Look, I'm just going to tell you, but you have to promise not to freak out."

She filled her mind with polka music and stared at me until I nodded.

"Okay. After you left Bella I began seeing a new vision. It must have been when you realized how impossible it was to be apart from her. I wasn't going to show you, because I know how hard you are on yourself, and I was sure things would change once you saw her again. But it hasn't, and…"

I wondered what horrible thing she'd seen me do to be rambling on this way. "Just tell me, Alice," I interrupted tiredly. "Did you see me go off to Italy after she dies or something? Suicide by Volturi?"

"Pssh, I've seen that possibility since Phoenix." She scowled at me. "And thank you very much for adding _that_ to the mix while we were rushing to save her. No, Edward, that's the point— given the opportunity to stop it, I have never seen you let her die. I have, however, begun seeing you change her when she's dying of old age."

The image was in her mind: an aged Bella in a hospital bed, her white hair neatly braided and draped over her shoulder, her body frail and withered, patchy blue bruises under the translucent skin of her hands and arms. I stood next to her, anguished, my appearance repulsively youthful and unchanged, the metal of the bedrail bent to conform to my hands.

The next image was of me leaning over, her head pushed to the side, my teeth in her neck.

"I wouldn't…" My voice petered out, since it was apparent from the vision that I would. I knew how her visions worked, and this one was remarkably clear for being so far into the future, barely fuzzy at all.

Alice continued inexorably on. "I see you do it whether she stays with you or not. That was the vision where you two have spent her life together. This is a new one from today, where she lives apart from you." In this one, Bella's hair was still white, her hands and arms were still bruised, but the room was smaller, the medical equipment older. She looked less well cared for, and her hair was cut short. I was still there, the rail was still shaped to my hands, and my teeth still ended up in her neck.

"She won't be happy if you do that to her," my sister said soberly.

That had to be the hugest understatement Alice had ever uttered. That _anyone_ had ever uttered, in the entire history of the world. I couldn't even imagine Bella's fury if I changed her when she was an old woman. I didn't want to imagine it.

She would hate me, and rightfully so.

I tried to move, to speak, but I was frozen in horror. It was difficult to process this evidence of my weakness. Of my depravity. I should have never spoken to Bella; never forced myself into her life. I should have never come back from Alaska. I should have left her alone.

Visions of me leaving flickered through Alice's mind, and she pulled her hand from mine and smacked me. "Stop it, Edward!" She rubbed my arm, soothing the spot where she'd hit me, even though she had to know it didn't hurt. "Edward, please, talk to me. I don't know what you're thinking, but I'm beginning to think that you don't believe you should ever be happy."

I hugged the Bella-scented pillow to me, wishing it was her, and said sullenly, "I shouldn't be happy, if it's at her expense."

Alice sat back slowly and curled her legs under her, a frown creasing her forehead. "So, whenever you're happy, you think it's at her expense?"

"It _is_ at her expense, Alice. Everything I've done, no matter how hard I try to do what's best for her, everything always ends up being at her expense! There is no way I can't hurt her. I should have never approached her in the first place, never have forced my way into her life—"

"_Forced_ your way? Are we even remembering the same events? Because Bella welcomed you with open arms, and you know it!"

"I had no right!" I shouted. A small part of my mind was shocked at how quickly our conversation had escalated into argument. "I had no right to approach her, no right to touch her, no right to even think of her!"

"She's your mate! It's completely irrational to think you could have been able to stay away from her! This isn't something you can control, Edward."

"I should be able to control it," I insisted stubbornly. "I should be able to put what's best for her before my own selfish desires! I want to… I try to do that, I really do, but somehow what I want always takes precedence."

She massaged her forehead with her fingertips and fired back, "You love her and she loves you. She _loves_ you, Edward. It is not wrong for you to want to be with her. It wouldn't be wrong if you wanted to change her. It…"

Her voice trailed off and she stared at me, her mouth a perfect o, as her mind replayed the expression she had just seen flit across my face. "You _want_ to change her," she gasped, shocked. "That's why I've never stopped having the visions of her as a vampire. Even after we left… I thought it was just that she still wanted it, but the whole time it's been you, too."

"Yes. Yes, I want to change her." The words hissed between my teeth. "I've always wanted to change her. Are you happy now? Now that you've made me admit how despicable I am?" I fisted my hands in my hair as shame rolled over me. The pillow fell to the floor and I stared at it, torn between picking it back up and leaving it alone.

Great. Now I've transferred my dilemma over Bella to a pillow.

"Edward, I love you, but you are an idiot. You're sitting there all tormented and ashamed for wanting what is perfectly normal and right."

"'Right,'" I repeated, and scoffed at her. "There's nothing 'right' about wanting to turn Bella into a monster like me."

"You're not a monster, Edward!"

"Of course I am." I stared at the pillow, wanting to pick it up. "Come on, Alice. You know about my little vigilante power trip."

"You haven't killed anyone since 1931! For crying out loud, Edward, I've killed since then, and so have Emmett and Jasper!"

"There's a difference though, Alice. You have never set out to kill anyone and neither has Emmett. Jasper killed to feed because he didn't know there was any other way, and his only kills since you found him have been unintentional. But I _did_ know. I was shown the right way from the beginning, but it wasn't good enough for me. No, _I_ was too special to be limited to animal blood. _I_ could use my talent to stalk and kill the dregs of humanity, in my vanity and hedonism deluding myself that my evil was good! I would drink them dry, feeling their bones snap beneath my fingertips as the burn in my throat was quenched, and smugly dispose of their bodies while thinking I had done some great service to the world. I drowned my conscience in blood until I couldn't hear it anymore!" I gazed desperately at the pillow. At least I could still smell it.

"That can't be true," Alice disagreed calmly. She picked up the pillow and handed it to me, and I was too distracted by sticking my nose in it to argue with her. "If you couldn't hear your conscience you would never have stopped."

"I suppose," I said begrudgingly. I leaned my head back against the couch cushion, staring up at the ceiling. "I was depressed, tired of it all. I wasn't making any difference. No matter how many criminals I killed there were always more, and their minds were so sickening. Rapists, pimps, murderers, abusers… it was revolting the things they took pleasure in. And you're right, I knew what I was doing was wrong, and somewhere in the back of my mind I was beginning to consider returning to animal blood. But regardless of my diet, I didn't think I would ever be able to go home. I felt so filthy and evil, not only because of what I'd been doing, but because of years of seeking out and listening to the most vile minds I could find. It was as if their thoughts had poisoned me. I didn't think I would ever be clean."

Alice looked fascinated. "You weren't going to go back? What changed your mind?"

"I was behind a warehouse. I had just finished feeding, and out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of another vampire. He looked depraved and menacing, completely feral. I was in a defensive crouch for a full second before I realized that it was me. The moon had come out from behind the clouds and I had seen my reflection in a pane of glass."

I hugged the pillow to me and chuckled humorlessly. "You could say it was an eye-opening experience. It frightened me. I didn't want to be that evil-looking creature. Without even thinking about it, I disposed of the body and started running for home. I wasn't sure if Carlisle and Esme would still be there or if they would be willing to take me back if they were, but I just…"

"You just had to go. You needed them."

"Yes."

"Because what you were doing was wrong, and you were sorry, and you didn't want to do it anymore."

"Yes."

"That doesn't sound like the thoughts of a monster, Edward."

I opened my mouth to retort, and shut it again when I realized I had nothing to say.

She let me turn that over in my mind before continuing. "There are definitely challenges to this life, and I'm not going to say that Bella won't have to experience any of them. But please don't forget that there are challenges and dangers in a human life as well. You know we'll all help her with the transition. We won't let her run off and kill people. But really, there's no chance of that happening— she's going to want to be with you, and you certainly aren't going to return to drinking humans. Think about it, Edward. If you'd had a mate who was devoted to the vegetarian lifestyle, do you really think you'd have run off without her to drink human blood?"

"No," I admitted.

"The larger problem here is that for some reason you think this is completely your decision."

I eyed her like she'd thrown a bomb out into the room instead of words. "What?"

"Why is this your decision?"

"Because… because it is! I'm the one who has to do it."

Alice inspected her manicure and said calmly, "You don't have to be. Carlisle would change her if you asked him. And I'll be honest, Edward, I've thought about changing her myself."

"What?!" Alice didn't have the control to change her! How could she even be considering such a thing?

"Who does it isn't really the point." She sounded completely placid. As though I wasn't staring at her, wild-eyed, with a hand fisted in my hair. "The point is that it should be her decision whether or not to change. Who does is it a secondary question. It's just logistics."

"But—" _Logistics?_ Really?

She talked right over me. "She's an adult, right?"

"Yes, but—"

"Don't you think she's smart enough to make the decision on her own?"

I was at a loss for words. Of course I thought Bella was smart. I just wanted to protect her. I wanted her to be happy. When I regained the power of speech I told Alice so.

Her face softened, as did her voice. "Why don't you let her decide what will make her happy? Give her all the information she needs and let it be her choice."

We sat in silence for a minute while I tried to decide what to think. She squeezed my hand where it was clenched around the pillow and stood up. "Think about it, okay? Right now there's someone else who wants to talk to you. If you want to talk to me some more just call me and I'll be back in a jiffy."

"Or just decide to call you," I joked weakly.

She smiled impishly. "That'll work, too."

She bounced out of the room and I wondered who would be coming next. Carlisle, most likely. I hugged Bella's pillow to me and waited.

I smelled her before I saw her and rose to my feet. "Esme?" Not that I wasn't pleased to see her, but she wasn't who I'd expected to see walk through the door.

"Edward," she said warmly. She pulled me into a tight hug and I allowed myself the luxury of sagging against her. "My poor boy," she murmured. As I pulled away she patted my hair into a semblance of order and smoothed my shirt.

"I'm sorry I'm not wearing a tie for you to straighten," I teased her, thinking of how many times she'd done just that over the decades I'd known her, and chuckled when she wrinkled her nose at me.

We sat on the couch, and I hoped she wasn't going to argue with me, too. The thought of it exhausted me. And she was _Esme_. I didn't want to quarrel with her.

"Edward… I came here knowing what I wanted to say to you, but before I do there's something else I need to tell you. I wasn't intending to eavesdrop on your conversation with Alice, but you were shouting, and… well, I moved closer. Anyway, there's something I've never told you, and after hearing what you said I think I may owe you an apology for my silence."

She stared sightlessly at her hands for a moment, the fingers of one sliding down the other as though she was straightening the seams of nonexistent gloves. "I should have told you long ago, but I worried what you would think of me. You've always seen me as someone to protect, someone with all the feminine virtues, and I didn't want you to lose respect for me."

"Esme, I haven't the foggiest notion what you're talking about, but I could never lose respect for you."

She smiled faintly. "I hope not." Her eyes met mine for a moment, then darted back to her hands. "I may as well just spit it out. After you came home in '31, remember how you insisted on telling us what you had done? I wasn't sure—I'm still not sure—whether you longed for absolution or wanted to make us think you were depraved."

"I don't know," I murmured. "Perhaps both."

"Yes, perhaps," she agreed sadly. "You were talking with this cold determination, telling us all about what you had been thinking and how you selected your prey, not letting us get a word in edgewise, and suddenly you tossed out, 'Oh, and Esme, your former husband was my first victim.' You said it as though you expected me to be sorry for it, but Edward…" She took a steadying breath and blurted out, "I was _never_ sorry. My first thought was that I was glad he would never be able to hurt any other woman, and my second was that I hoped you made him suffer."

I was staring at her with my mouth gaping open. In a million years, I would never have guessed she'd had that reaction.

Her eyes flickered to my face for a split second, then away. She stared unseeingly at the wall. "I was instantly remorseful— not because I regretted how I felt, but because you were so obviously tormented by what you'd done and how could I rejoice in something that hurt you?

"A year or so later, I was beginning to get worried about you. There was a heaviness, a sadness, that you couldn't seem to shake. You had always expected a great deal of yourself, but now you seemed to believe you had to behave perfectly. I told Carlisle that I was going to talk to you, that since you couldn't get forgiveness from the families of the other brutes you killed, perhaps it would help to get it from me. But when I recounted how I had felt when you told us you killed Charles… he tried to hide it but I could tell he was stunned. His reaction made me afraid of yours, and so I put off telling you. And then after Emmett joined us you seemed to improve. I hoped that time would take care of things… indeed, I thought it had. I had no idea that you still hated yourself so much. There's no need for it, Edward, and I'm so sorry I never talked to you."

"Esme, there's nothing to forgive. You didn't do anything wrong. But, what I am… what I _did_... is unforgivable."

She frowned at me. "Nonsense— nothing is unforgivable, not when you're remorseful. Edward, if you don't believe anything else I say, please believe this: Carlisle and I are so proud of you. Not because of what you did while you were gone, but because you _stopped_. You chose to stop when there was nothing prompting you to do it but your own conscience. And after those years of drinking human blood you've never slipped up, never tasted it again… do you not realize how remarkable you are? Instead on focusing on your few years of failure, you should focus on your many years of success!"

She didn't understand. She was wrong to think so highly of me, and I told her so. "I want to kill people every single day, Esme. Every day! I'm not this perfect person that you think I am."

"We're all tempted every day. Do you think you're alone in that? And do you think it's only vampires who struggle with temptation? Humans do as well, and considering your gift you should know that better than anyone."

"Carlisle's not tempted," I pointed out desperately.

She waved a hand in the air, dismissing my argument. "Carlisle has been continually exposed to flowing human blood for almost two centuries. It's not surprising he's become somewhat inured to it. But you're comparing apples to oranges here."

"Because he's better than I am." I knew it was true, but it still stung a little hearing it from Esme, of all people.

"No!" she cried, exasperated. "Because he's _not you_. It's unfair to compare yourself to anyone except yourself— to how you were a year ago or a decade ago. That's the only accurate way to measure your growth. But really, Edward, you need to get Carlisle off this pedestal you've put him on. He has weaknesses and failings just like anyone else."

I was silent for a long moment, a horrifying thought taking root in my mind. "Is he… He's tired of dealing with me, isn't he?"

"Why would you ask that?" she gasped, her eyes huge.

She didn't say it wasn't true. I slumped forward and rested my elbows on my knees, running my hands over my face and into my hair. The pillow was forced upwards towards my face and I desperately breathed Bella in.

"Edward?"

"You said he has weaknesses and failings… and he's not here," I muttered. "I'm not… I don't blame him. I know what I've put you all through these last months and—"

"Edward!" She slid her hand around my jaw and compelled me to turn my face toward her. "All I meant is that he's not perfect. He works too much and leaves his clothes and books strewn about, and as much as I love his compassion he sometimes takes it too far. He is not 'tired of dealing' with you. I don't know why you would even think that! No wonder Alice—" She abruptly stopped talking.

"No wonder Alice what?" I asked suspiciously.

She sighed and released my face, leaning back into the cushions. "The truth is, Carlisle wanted to come. But unfortunately, when Alice looked she saw that it wouldn't be helpful."

I winced as I caught a glimpse of Carlisle's stricken face in her mind.

She patted my hand and shifted in her seat. "It doesn't mean he would have made things worse, you know. Just that he wouldn't have made things better. It isn't as though the two of you haven't already discussed most of these things before, so maybe it was just that some fresh voices were needed."

I nodded and hoped that was true.

"I suppose I should get on with what I'd actually intended to talk to you about. I know you love Bella and want the best for her, but has it ever occurred to you that she cannot be truly happy without you?"

No, it hadn't. At least it hadn't until today.

"You know my history. I'm not saying that Bella's human life would end up as disastrous as mine, but Edward, even though my time spent with Carlisle was brief I never forgot him. I compared every man I met to him, and they all fell short. I agreed to marry Charles to please my parents, because I thought if I couldn't have who I truly wanted it made no difference who I wed. I was wrong, of course, but in my defense I had no idea that a man could treat his wife so brutally. Had he been a better sort of man I'm sure I would have grown fond of him and I would have tried to be a good wife, but I can say with perfect honesty that I would never have been completely happy. And if he loved me I would have spent our lives together feeling guilty that my heart still yearned for a different man.

"All of that was true after I knew Carlisle for only a few hours—how much worse will it be for Bella after all the months you spent together? Don't try to live apart from her any longer, Edward. She is your mate, but you are also hers, and she needs you."

I propped my chin on the pillow as I thought about that. I said slowly, "Alice thinks that the decision to change Bella shouldn't be mine. That it should be hers. Bella's, I mean."

"Of course it should," Esme agreed. "You should discuss it, of course, and make sure that she knows all the pertinent facts, but at the end of the day it's her life. Why shouldn't she get to choose?"

We sat in silence as I tried to decide if it was really true, or if I only wanted it to be true. It would be such a relief to know that the burden of the decision didn't rest solely with me, but it was wrong to shift that burden onto Bella. Wasn't it? But… perhaps it wouldn't be such a burden for her. And really, what was worse? Imposing my views on her and dictating her choices, or facilitating whatever decision she came to?

I had never thought about it that way before.

Esme's voice pulled me from my reverie. "Edward? Thank you for stopping Charles. I know it wouldn't have ended with what he did to me."

"No. It didn't." I took a deep breath, my mind traveling back almost eighty years. "There was a woman at the house with him. I took him away before she knew I was there, but I saw her in his mind. I saw what he did to her. It was more of the same as what he'd done to you, and I was angry. Out of everyone I killed, he was the only one I let suffer."

She leaned her head against my shoulder. "Thank you, Edward," she repeated.

I almost replied that I hadn't done it for her, that it had been simple bloodlust, but the truth was I _had_ done it for her. I had known how she worried that he would hurt someone else, and feared that he was still looking for her. I had enjoyed drinking his blood, the first blood to ever fully quench my thirst, but I had selected him in hopes of giving her some peace of mind.

I reached for her hand and squeezed it. "You're welcome, Esme."

She held my hand in both of hers and asked tentatively, "The others you killed… were they all like him?"

"Uh, no, not really. They were worse. Serial killers and rapists, pimps, parents who prostituted their children, abusers who… who made Charles look like an altar boy… just really… really despicable, evil people."

"Well. I imagine there were plenty of others who wished they could thank you as well, then."

"I suppose," I replied, taken aback.

"I'm not saying that I think you were right to kill people," she elaborated calmly. "You weren't. But at least you didn't leave despair in your wake, the way you would have if you'd killed innocents."

Surely it was wrong, to be receiving so much comfort from this conversation.

Esme squeezed my hand and let me be, focusing her mind on the renovation she was wrapping up back in New York. I thought of Bella, of the cold immortal face I'd seen in Alice's vision so long ago. Would she even be happy as a vampire? My greatest fear was that she would decide too easily to change and come later to regret it. To regret her life with me. To resent me.

I needed to talk to Alice. Unsurprisingly, as I reached for my phone to call her she dashed in the door and sank down onto the couch next to me.

"You rang, brother dear?" she chirped.

"Well, not yet," I grumbled. "Listen Alice, if I change Bella, will she be happy?"

She grinned, her eyes wide with excitement, but her voice was gentle. "You have to make the decision, Edward."

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and decided.

I would change her.

Our heads filled: Bella smiling at me, her golden eyes full of love. Bella laughing as she tried to tickle me. Newborn Bella arm wrestling Emmett and crowing in victory when she won. Bella leaning against Esme's side, looking over blueprints for a new renovation. Bella playing chess with Carlisle. Bella curled up in a chair, Jasper in a wing chair next to her, both of them reading. He smirked and said something to her and she shoved at his arm, laughing. Bella running with me in a forest. We were wearing the strangest outfits…

I opened my eyes. "What was that last one?"

Alice shrugged, looking bemused. "Some kind of weird throwback clothes in the future? That dress! I can't imagine Bella ever willingly wearing that dress."

"Me neither," I said feelingly. Our eyes met, and we started laughing at each other's bewilderment.

"What were you wearing?" Esme asked curiously.

"Edward was in a white shirt… and tan linen pants…"

"And a horrible floppy vest. Don't forget the vest!" I snorted unintentionally as I inhaled and Alice doubled over with mirth. "And Bella was in this pastel dress…"

"With a wide sash. And white hose, like a little girl," Alice wheezed. "Oh mercy, it was awful." She flopped back on the couch, one arm flung above her head. "We have to do something. We can't ever wear clothes like that."

I snorted again, purposefully this time, as Esme laughingly asked her exactly how she planned to avoid it.

"I don't know, but I'll think of something." Determination was written all over her small face. "That is one future I am going to avert!"

"Of course you are," I said sarcastically. "Heaven forbid you should have to wear unattractive clothing."

She stabbed me in the arm with her small, poky finger and eyed me menacingly. "This is serious business. Do you remember the seventies? We are never going through a decade like that, ever again." Every syllable in her last sentence was enunciated separately. She was scary.

I shifted slowly away from her, wide-eyed, and jabbed Esme with my elbow when she started giggling at me. "Okay, then. You just… do that."

"Oh, I will," she avowed flatly. "Don't you worry."

"Not worried," I assured her disingenuously. _Except that if there's another disastrous decade of fashion you might go on a murderous rampage at all the major fashion houses. _"Not worried at all."

"Good." She smiled brightly, returning disturbingly quickly to her normal perky self. "So why are you still here, anyway? Go find Bella!"

"Bring her over tomorrow, Edward," Esme said warmly. "I'm so looking forward to seeing her again. Alice and I will get things straightened out here before we head back to the resort."

"Yeah, since _you_ never did it," Alice said cheerfully, her eyes twinkling.

"You know you didn't really expect me to, Alice," I said drily. "You were just trying to drive me insane."

She merely laughed in response, and I rolled my eyes, then gathered them into a hug. "Thank you both."

"You're welcome," they chorused. Esme made a shooing motion at me as I let them go, and I fulfilled her wishes (as well as my own!) by dashing out the door.

I was almost to Bella's when I saw her run from the house. She slipped in the mud at the edge of her driveway, stopping her fall by grabbing the handle of her truck, and yanked the door open.

Wouldn't it be ironic if she left just as I arrived to talk to her? Not that I couldn't easily catch her in her sluggish truck, but still. I sprinted the rest of the way, calling, "Bella, where are you going?"

She turned her head to look at me, her eyes huge, then she burst into tears and tried to run to me. Her foot skidded in the mud and I plucked her out of the air before she face-planted.

"I'm sorry!" she cried.

I held her close, surprised to discover I was shaking. How had I almost allowed myself to be separated from her again? "No, I'm sorry. I should have been willing to talk to you."

"But I pushed you and gave you an ultima—"

"Bells?" _What's going… girl… acting so strange… Who is…_

We both froze. I forced my arms to relax so Bella could slide down my front, then wished I had just set her down. She grabbed my hand and squeezed tightly as Charlie squinted at us from the front door. He recoiled when he recognized me.

"Edward Cullen?" he asked indignantly. _What in the… doing here?_

"Yes. Hello, Chief Swan."

His mind exploded into incomprehensible chaos. "Is _that_ what's been going on this week? You've been back in town? Bella, you said… and Jake… you _lied_ to me?"

"No! I didn't know he was here!"

"Get in this house this minute! I thought you were doing things for yourself, but you—"

Okay, this was getting out of hand. "Sir, I didn't see Bella until today. She didn't lie to you."

He scowled at me and said disbelievingly, "So. You got here today."

I decided not to lie to him, since it was possible he might hear the truth from someone on the reservation. "Ah, no. I came back to Forks on Monday night. But I didn't see Bella until this morning."

Unfortunately, while it reduced his anger at his daughter, it didn't do anything to improve his opinion of me. "Why not? Weren't you planning on seeing her?" _What kind of… are you?_ "And exactly what is so funny?" he demanded irately.

I wiped the smirk off my face. "Bella asked the same thing, that's all. I came back with the intention of seeing her right away, but I ran into Jacob Monday night and promised him to give her a week to… sort things out."

"So why didn't you give her a week then?" _Selfish… Probably lying… not likely he… to Jake._

I bristled. "I planned to. Bella came over to the house today and surprised me. If you like, you can ask Jacob and Seth Clearwater when I arrived and if I approached her before today. I've spent time with both of them this week."

_Huh. Thought… Quileutes hated… Cullens… why… spending time…_

I repressed a sigh.

"I'll give them a call," he said stiffly. "Bella, come on in the house now. You can see him tomorrow."

"But—" she started hotly.

"Now, please, Bella." He stood there and stared darkly at us, his arms folded across his chest.

"It's okay," I murmured. "I have to talk to Jacob anyway. Don't wait up for me."

Frustrated tears welled up as she whispered, "But I don't know what you decided. And—"

_Hurry it up, boy. _Well, that thought came through loud and clear.

"You were right," I told her simply, my voice low enough that her father wouldn't be able to hear. "You should get to choose."

Her eyes were huge and luminous in the moonlight, her hair a dark, tangled cloud framing her face. She was so beautiful. "Really?"

"Yes."

She flung herself at me and I laughed and caught her, cradling her close to my heart. My precious Bella. Mine for all eternity.

Her father snapped her name, but we both ignored him.

"We need to talk about it, and all the logistics, but we can do that tomorrow."

"You'll come over later?" she whispered against my neck.

"I'll be here when you wake up," I promised. I kissed her head and set her back on the ground. "Sweet dreams, Bella," I told her at a normal volume.

"Good night, Edward." She floated towards the front door and I watched through her father's confused eyes as she smiled beatifically at him. Poor man.

I waited until they were in the house, then headed for my usual nighttime spot, singing under my breath.

…

I heard Jacob's mind coming and braced myself, hoping this wouldn't go badly. My phone wasn't ringing, so presumably Alice could see that I was unscathed later on.

He greeted me dispassionately, his mind blessedly calm.

At least it was. Until the wind blew past me toward him. His nostrils flared and he glowered at me.

"Yes, I saw Bella today," I forestalled him. "I didn't seek her out; she came to my house this morning and found me there."

"Why?"

"Why did she come to the house?"

He nodded, his jaw tight.

I huffed a laugh. "You know, I don't know. I didn't think to ask her."

_Yeah, I guess I wouldn't have asked either._ "You're back together now?" He sounded defeated, like he already knew what the answer was, and I felt a pang of pity for him.

"Yes." I confirmed quietly. I thought about telling him I was sorry, but decided against it. If the situation was reversed I wouldn't want to hear that from him, no matter how true the sentiment was.

We stood in silence for a time, until his mind and his body were calm. I forced myself to tell him the rest. I hoped he wouldn't phase; I really didn't want to have to fight him.

"In the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you that things have changed since I spoke to you last night." I chose my words carefully, trying to find a way to tell him that was honest yet not inflammatory. If such a way existed. "I've come to realize that it isn't right for me to force Bella to live the way I want her to."

He frowned, wishing I would get to the point.

"I need to let her make her own decisions about how to live her life. And… in what form."

He exhaled through his nose like a bull and I took a cautious step backwards.

"You're going to change her?" he spat. His heart rate rose as he pictured Bella paler and red-eyed, and nearly incoherent pain ripped through his mind.

I eyed him warily. "Those are her terms, yes."

He froze as he processed that, then visibly deflated as his pain and anger crashed down into grief. "Her terms," he repeated expressionlessly. _There's no hope. I've really lost her_.

"Yes. If we're going to be together… she insists that we be on an equal footing." I didn't mention the other option she gave me. An eternity without her was not an option for me; it was an impossibility. I couldn't do it. Not even to keep her human.

I reminded myself that it wasn't my decision to make, and tried not to feel guilty.

We stood silently as he struggled to come to grips with the fact that the girl he loved was choosing to become something he instinctively loathed. Finally, he said sarcastically, "Well, if she wants equality, I guess there's no going back to human for you."

I chuckled despite myself. "No, unfortunately not."

He turned his head and looked at me curiously. "Would you do that for her, if you could?"

"I would have done it as soon as I knew that I loved her. I don't want this life for her. I don't like what I am, Jacob. We— my family— would prefer to be human. But this is what we are. We just try to make the best out of what we've been given."

He thought about that for a while, his instinctive suspicion of my kind warring with the grudging trust he'd developed this week, then scrubbed his hands over his face, heaving a huge sigh.

"Okay. I can't pretend I didn't know this was coming. Bella going back to you, I mean. I just wish…" His voice trailed off, a fresh wave of grief swamping his mind. I fixed my eyes on the house, acting as if I couldn't hear what he was thinking. Trying to give him at least the pretense of privacy.

Several minutes had gone by when he asked almost steadily, "Will it be soon?"

"I don't know. We still need to discuss the timeline. We'll want to do it in a way that gives Bella's parents closure, make it as easy on them as we can."

He scoffed. "There's no way to make this easy on Charlie!"

"I know," I agreed regretfully. He was right. It could never be easy.

He sighed again, sounding unutterably weary. "I'll try to talk to Sam about the treaty. I don't know what he'll say, but I doubt it'll be good. I don't think anyone will try to hunt you, but you guys probably will never be able to come back here again, afterwards."

"I appreciate you trying. Do you want me to contact you, when I know when it will be?" I knew if I were he, I would want to know.

"Yes," he replied lowly. "I don't want to wonder."

"Very well." I paused, hesitant to push him further, but I knew Bella would want me to ask. "Would you be willing to stay in contact with her? I know it's asking a lot, considering everything, but you are very important to her."

"You going to want my blood next?" he snapped. "What the hell, man? I'm not trying to kill you, even though I know what you're going to do— what more do you want from me?"

I grimaced. "I know. I'm sorry. It's just that of everyone in her life that she loves, you are the only one she can possibly stay in contact with. I'd like that for her, if you could do it, perhaps someday in the future."

I blinked as his mind filled, unexpectedly, with Dickens. _A Tale of Two Cities _flew through his head in fragmented form.

"Someday," he agreed quietly.

"'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done,'" I quoted.

"Stay out of my head, Cullen," he retorted. "And don't get any ideas. I wouldn't take your place at the guillotine."

I chuckled. "Fair enough, Black. Although I don't think it was truly Darnay that Carton died for. Do you?"

"Do you really think I want to discuss books with you?" he groused, sounding almost amiable. "Just treat her well and make her happy, so I don't have to kill you."

He gave me a graphic, slow-motion mental show of himself tearing me apart and dancing around the subsequent blaze, making me roll my eyes. "I'll do my best."

He left after that, and I waited until I could no longer hear his mind before slipping silently through Bella's window. I discarded my original thought of spending the night in her rocking chair and headed straight to the bed, lying behind her on top of the bedclothes, and with a flick of my wrist settling a throw blanket over us both. Her hair was spread behind her, flowing over the edge of her pillow like a silken river, and I nuzzled my face into it, breathing her in. Her scent and her heat encompassed me and I fully relaxed for the first time in hours.

Or perhaps, in my vampire life, for the first time ever.

"Edward," she breathed, her heart slow and heavy with sleep.

I pressed a kiss behind her ear and murmured, "I'm here, my Bella."

She made a wordless, contented sound, and fumbled for my hand, which was draped over her waist. With my assistance, she grasped my forefinger and pulled my arm upwards, then nestled her cheek into my palm and sighed. "Ewward… love you."

"I love you, too," I whispered fervently. "My dearest Bella. I love you, too."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I'm sorry this took so long- getting Edward to an epiphany of any sort is no easy task, and once I started to write this chapter I realized that none of the ideas I had would work. He seems to need to be shocked into taking a fresh look at his convictions- realizing he thought he was in Heaven with Bella in NM and realizing that Renesmee wasn't an evil demon child in BD being prime examples in canon- but he never thought Bella was dead in this and I had no intention of giving them a child (and even if I did I needed him to get a grip _now_, not later.) I was thinking myself in circles, but after a lot of discussion with (and whining to) Jessica314 she said something about which was worse- taking Bella's choices away by refusing to change her or allowing her to make the choice? And I took that idea and ran with it- so you can thank her that this chapter finally got written! This Edward of course still thinks he's soulless, but I really don't know what to do about that. Maybe once he's consistently happy he'll be willing to take a fresh look at it.**

**There's one more Bella POV chapter, then a Jake POV epilogue set 6 or 8 years into the future. I've had a few Jake lovers tell me what they would like for him (imprint, no imprint, etc) and I would love to hear from all of you- what kind of future would you like this Jake to have? Thanks for reading, and please review!**


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